Stephanie White fires back ‘Everybody else can go to hell’, Caitlin Clark vows Fever win ‘for’ coach Stephanie White, Indiana Fever rally behind amid sacking calls, Sophie Cunningham

“Everybody else can go to hell.”

Indiana Fever coach Stephanie White has fired back after days of mounting criticism and calls for her sacking, delivering an impassioned defence of herself and her players as pressure surrounding the WNBA franchise continues to intensify.

White used her pre-game media availability ahead of Tuesday’s clash with the New York Liberty to address what she described as “hate, fearmongering” and “divisiveness” surrounding her team, while taking particular exception to suggestions she does not have the backs of her players.

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“I take personally any suggestions that I don’t 100 percent always have my player’s back,” White said.

“I ride with them 10 toes down all the time – all the time.

“They know that.”

White has found herself at the centre of an increasingly ugly storm following her comments about DiJonai Carrington’s controversial foul on Sophie Cunningham, which led Indiana Lieutenant Governor Micah Beckwith to publicly call for her dismissal.

Rather than hold her typical pre-game press conference on Tuesday, White delivered an impassioned statement addressing what she described as an online community attempting to create false narratives about her and her relationship with her players.

“The reality is with me, I will always lead with love. I will always lead with grace, I will always lead with humility and I will always lead with integrity,” White said.

“Doesn’t mean I’ll always get it right. I’m also human.

“The hate, the fearmongering, the divisiveness, the stuff that’s trying to hijack our league will not win.

“It won’t win. We are united, we are connected. We will not be divided.

“Every day these women put their ass on the line. Every day. When they go low, we go high.

“Love will win. Grace will win. Humility will win, and kindness will win.

“I stand by them. I’ll always stand by them. Everybody else can go to hell.”

White then walked away without taking any questions.

But she was far from alone in her fight.

The backlash spilled into Gainbridge Fieldhouse before Tuesday’s game, with White booed by sections of the home crowd.

That reception did not sit well with Caitlin Clark.

And after the Fever responded with a victory over the Liberty, Clark revealed she had made a promise to her coach before the game.

“I can assure you there was no way we were losing this game tonight, and I told her that before the game,” Clark said.

“There was no way we were losing this game for her.

“It’s tough. That’s my head coach and I hated that our fans booed her before the game. That made me a little sick to be honest.

“At the end of the day that’s our head coach and we’re going to ride for her and we’re always going to have her back.

“That’s never going to tear our locker room apart.”

The extraordinary scenes came after days of mounting scrutiny surrounding White and the Fever following Saturday’s fiery win over the Chicago Sky.

Carrington was ejected after being assessed a Flagrant 2 foul for heavy contact on Cunningham, with White asked about the incident following the game.

White, who previously coached Carrington at the Connecticut Sun, said at the time she believed officials made the correct call but did not think her former player had deliberately targeted Cunningham’s neck.

“One of the things about her is that she’s gonna play her butt off, man,” White said.

“She’s gonna compete. Nobody’s gonna go walking in for a layup. And so, I don’t oppose the hard foul.

“But I also don’t think that she intentionally went for the neck.”

Those comments drew the ire of Beckwith, who accused White of siding with an opposition player over one of her own and publicly called for the Fever to make a coaching change.

“No solid coach would ever take the side of the opposing team’s player who committed a flagrant foul on one of your own players,” Beckwith posted on X.

“Terrible coaching! The Fever need to defend their players.

“The Fever need to let Stephanie White go.”

The Fever quickly threw their support behind White.

Team president Kelly Krauskopf said White had done a “tremendous job” leading Indiana and had kept the group together despite operating under an enormous spotlight.

“She has kept our team focused and united, all while under the brightest spotlight our team and our league have ever experienced,” Krauskopf said.

“She has the full support of leadership.”

White also clarified on Tuesday that she had not seen the Carrington foul clearly in real time before making her initial comments.

“Was it egregious? Absolutely,” White said.

“When you have a chance to watch that, over and over and over on replay, you can see that. I didn’t have that in real time.”

Clark, however, made clear there was no suggestion from inside the Fever locker room that White had failed to support her players.

The superstar guard revealed she had spoken privately with White earlier in the day as the pressure surrounding the coach continued to build.

“I talked to Steph earlier in the day too, and I think we forget a lot of times, we’re human,” Clark said.

“She has feelings and there’s moments that are really hard, and sometimes that’s just the job you sign up for.

“But at the same time it’s okay to feel those emotions.”

Clark said her own experiences dealing with intense scrutiny had given her an understanding of what White was going through.

“I told her, I’ve been through the same thing,” Clark said.

“There’s been days where I’ve been really upset, and you can have the thickest skin in the world, but sometimes it does get to you.

“I think our world is just like, we love to hate. We love to divide. Nobody wants to see each other succeed.

“I think that’s a really painful thing for myself to watch. I feel like we need to do a better job of uplifting each other.”

For Clark, Tuesday’s performance was ultimately about sending a message of support to the coach who had spent the previous days under fire.

“I just love her and I feel for her because I know it can be a lot at times,” Clark said.

“She does a great job a lot of times of blocking it out but there’s other moments where it can get under your skin and that’s just being human and that’s just life.

“To be honest, we really just did it for her and we did it for each other and the girls in our locker room.”