Players' coach: Sun's Stephanie White set to lead in her first All-Star Game
Jul. 14—MOHEGAN — Stephanie White arrived to coach the Connecticut Sun this season and found a veteran team which, due to the players' acute familiarity with each other's playing style, often speaks its own language.
What the Sun found, in White, however, is a veteran, too.
The former high school All-American from West Lebanon, Indiana ... the winner of the 1999 Wade Trophy, which she received as she led the Purdue women's basketball team to the national championship ... the former WNBA player, assistant coach and head coach ... the ESPN analyst ... the mother of four ... the player's coach.
"Literally, there's no one better," said Sun assistant coach Briann January, who played for the WNBA's Indiana Fever when White was both the assistant coach and later the head coach.
"It's not just her knowledge of the game, it's the way she leads a team. It's the way she develops relationships with players. It's the way she gets her players to play hard for her. It's the way she values culture (within the team) and positive culture and holds everybody accountable.
"One thing I really respect about her is she's out here to learn. She's a continuous learner in life and that's what makes her so great."
And so a mutual respect came about between White and her players.
For the most part, she gives them the freedom to make on-court adjustments within her fast-paced, read-and-react pro-style offense.
The Sun have responded, going 15-5 in the first half of the season, third in the overall WNBA standings behind Las Vegas (19-2) and New York (14-4), despite having lost starting post player Brionna Jones for the season with an Achilles injury.
That leads to Saturday's All-Star Game at Michelob Ultra Arena in Las Vegas (8:30 p.m., Ch. 8). By virtue of the Sun's record through June 30 (12-4, second to Las Vegas), White and her staff earned the honor of coaching Team Stewart, which will face Team Wilson in the All-Star Game, pitting captains Breanna Stewart of the New York Liberty and A'ja Wilson of the Las Vegas Aces.
White's staff includes January, Austin Kelly and Abi Olajuwon. New London High School grad Keith Porter, the Sun's player development coach, is filling in as interim assistant coach while Kelly is on paternity leave and will assist White in Las Vegas.
It is White's first time serving as head coach of an All-Star team and her roster includes Stewart, the UConn graduate and former WNBA MVP; Brittney Griner of the Phoenix Mercury, who missed last year's All-Star Game while being detained in Russia; and WNBA leading scorer Jewell Loyd of Seattle.
"It's exciting," said White, 46, who was named WNBA Coach of the Month in May. "I haven't had an All-Star experience. The last time I was on a staff that was supposed to coach All-Stars, my twins were born, so I didn't get to go.
"It really is just a testament to our team and what they've been able to do and the position they put us in."
White was the head coach of the women's basketball team at Vanderbilt from 2016-21, a final season which was suspended on Jan. 18, 2021, due to COVID-19 concerns and injuries. With just eight games played, the Commodores were 4-4. White was dismissed on April 6.
"I took some time to just sort of reevaluate," White said following a recent practice at the Mohegan Tribal Community Center. "Going through not just how hard of a job it was but going through COVID.
"I think it forced us all to recalibrate, find what's important. I also had a personal situation, so just taking some time to refocus and recalibrate. I didn't know if I would ever coach again and broadcasting is something I love doing, as well. I was perfectly happy doing that.
"Then, when the opportunity presented itself, it just, the stars aligned. It worked out for sure."
The stars aligned when White received a phone call from Sun president Jen Rizzotti.
Through all White's travels, she had never actually met Rizzotti. But Rizzotti, looking to replace head coach Curt Miller, who departed to take the same job with the Los Angeles Sparks, kept coming across White's name.
She was hired on Nov. 21, with Rizzotti calling White "the right coach at the right time for our organization," citing White's resume as a proven winner.
"She called me one day and just asked if I'd have any interest and I was like, 'Of course,'" White said. "It's just like anything, you're a little rusty (in the beginning), mostly in terms of practice planning. ... I don't know that I really started feeling back in the flow until we got to about mid-June."
Among White's first phone calls were those to January, Olajuwon and Kelly.
White was an assistant with the Chicago Sky when she coached Olajuwon, the daughter of NBA Hall of Fame center Hakeem Olajuwon. She coached January with the Fever, including winning a WNBA title with January in 2012 under head coach Lin Dunn. Kelly was the director of recruiting for White at Vanderbilt.
"It's funny," Olajuwon said. "I didn't know if Steph was going to coach again in college so I actually had said to her jokingly, 'Hey, if you get back into coaching, call me.' That was like two months before. I was literally joking.
"I think for her, I knew how she was as a coach, so I knew how she would be to work for. For me, that's so important to know that you're going to work with good people. Today's a Saturday, you know, you don't work Monday through Friday 9-5, so you want to make sure that you really enjoy the people that you're around."
White gets her coaching style from a combination of mentors. She played for Dunn (1996), Nell Fortner (1997) and Carolyn Peck (1998-99) at Purdue and coached alongside Dunn, Peck, Gail Goestenkors and Mickie DeMoss, a roster of the game's greats.
She credits Peck with helping cultivate her communication style.
"Carolyn was the first coach I played for that really encouraged our player feedback, in game, outside of game," White said. "And not just encouraged it but entrusted what we were saying.
"The biggest thing about being a coach who really encourages player feedback, it's like you know this is bigger than our coaching staff. It's about them and making them feel comfortable and confident in everything that we do and them having a voice that gives them ownership."
White's career as a 5-foot-9 shooting guard at Purdue placed her at the pinnacle in 1999, as she was named the winner of the Wade Trophy, the Big Ten Player of the Year, Big Ten Female Athlete of the Year, NCAA Woman of the Year and GTE Academic All-American of the Year.
She finished her career as a Boilermaker with 2,182 points, named to the Purdue Hall of Fame in 2006 and the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame in 2022, placing her in the company of other Hoosier State legends such as Larry Bird and Bobby Knight.
It contributed to her coaching style, knowing as a player what she looked for in coaches.
Which brings White back to the idea of her veteran Connecticut Sun players, including All-Stars Alyssa Thomas and DeWanna Bonner, having their own form of communication on the court and her giving them the autonomy to make their own decisions.
"Understanding that sometimes on the floor you see things a little bit differently than the people on the sideline," White said. "The biggest thing I told them was, 'Look, it's fine and I love that you guys know what you're gonna do, but everybody else has to, too. Not us on the staff, necessarily, but everybody else on the floor with you."
White, the franchise's sixth head coach, lives in Nashville with her partner Lisa and their four boys, Sam, Landon and twins Avery and Aiden, who are frequent visitors to Mohegan Sun Arena.
White spent Thursday night in Las Vegas broadcasting a pair of NBA Summer League games on ESPN. The Sun begin the second half of the season Tuesday in Phoenix.
"One of Steph's biggest successes is not coming in here and trying to recreate the wheel," Olajuwon said. "Sometimes people try to come in and change it just because they're new. This is a team that lost in the finals (last year). We don't have to change everything. They know how to win."
