Caitlin Clark‘s Indiana Fever teammates are standing alongside her in support of head coach Stephanie White as she faces increased scrutiny and negativity.
White was booed by fans at Gainbridge Fieldhouse on Tuesday prior to a game against the New York Liberty. That contest was the first since a game against the Chicago Sky where Fever guard Sophie Cunningham was on the receiving end of a hard foul from Chicago’s DiJonai Carrington.
After the game, before she was able to see the replay, White praised Carrington’s competitiveness while stressing her belief that the Chicago player didn’t intentionally go after Cunningham’s neck.
This led to significant social media backlash and forced White to give a fiery statement to the media. Clark was among the first players to publicly support her coach.
Other Fever stars followed suit, with Aliyah Boston and Kelsey Mitchell offering positive words on White’s behalf.
‘I think when you are on your home floor and your team is getting announced and the coach is getting announced, I feel like there is no reason for any of that,’ Boston said.
More Indiana Fever stars are coming out in defense of head coach Stephanie White
Aliyah Boston (L) and Kelsey Mitchell (R) both said they stand by White as she faces scrutiny
Fever star Caitlin Clark said she felt ‘a little sick’ after fans booed White in her introduction
‘We come out here and we do everything that we can to win and I think Steph does a great job with us. We love her and we appreciate her. To hear that, it was really annoying, honestly, and disrespectful.
‘But for us, we kept the main thing the main thing and we said we’re going to come out here and we’re going to get that dub.’
‘It kind of threw me for a loop too,’ Mitchell said. ‘I told her to her face, I said, “Coach, this is for you,” in terms of just a sense of confidence, a sense of awareness that you’re not alone.
‘And if anybody knows me, I don’t play that. It really hurt my feelings to see her kind of have emotions in terms of like, not feeling valued and not feeling wanted in a place where she has to coach.
‘At the end of the day, this is her job and she has to show up too, and I think that people don’t really recognize that and I think that it’s our job to remind her, it’s our culture and I think that we have to remind her that our culture is not going to let her fall to the wayside. So I hope she knows that.’
During her postgame press conference, Clark admitted, ‘I hated that our fans booed her before the game. That made me a little sick, to be honest.’
‘There was no way we were losing this game for her,’ Clark added, continuing, ‘We’re going to ride for her, and we’re always going to have her back.’
