Stephanie White will have a familiar face helping coach and guide the Indiana Fever in Caitlin Clark’s second season in the WNBA.
On Tuesday, the franchise announced that it would be adding onto new head coach White’s staff, with the team coming to terms with Austin Kelly to serve as an assistant coach. Kelly was White’s assistant coach with the Connecticut Sun the last two seasons.
As a member of the White’s coaching staff, the two, in conjunction with the rest of the coach staff, helped lead the Sun to the WNBA Semifinals the last two years. Additionally, Kelly and White worked together at Vanderbilt University, showing just how familiar the two are with each other.
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With the Sun, Kelly was in charge of the offense and now that he is in Indiana, he could retain the same responsibilities, though this time with Clark in tow. Along with signing Kelly to the Fever, Indiana also announced that Karima Christmas-Kelly would be returning to the coaching staff.
Christmas-Kelly is Kelly’s wife, with the two helping pave the way for White to set up the team for success. Of note, Christmas-Kelly played in the WNBA from 2011 to 2020, spending three seasons in Indiana from 2012 to 2014.
The former WNBA star also was an important piece to the Fever’s 2012 championship team and as a coach, Indiana fielded two Rookie of the Year winners in back-to-back years in Aliyah Boston and Clark. Christmas-Kelly was brought on as part of Christie Sides’ coaching staff, calling the experience “surreal.”
Austin Kelly and Stephanie White worked together as part of the Connecticut Sun coaching staff (
Photo by Joseph Denhoff/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
“Just being able to give back to a program and a situation that really benefited my career early on and just trying to help these players in that same way,” Christmas-Kelly told The Next. And despite being married to Kelly, the former WNBA champion understands that while there are moments when work stays on the court, especially considering how competitive the Sun and Fever were last season.
“We’ve talked about it a little bit. But I think we’ve just kind of let it go until we get to this point because our families are coming in town,” Christmas-Kelly continued. “We’re so competitive. We probably can’t do anything until the game is over.
“Then we can chat about it. He gives me a hard time on a daily basis; I give him a hard time. Because you of course want to win, but you want the other one to be successful.”
ow that the two are on the same coaching staff under White, their competitiveness could help feed into what the Fever’s new head coach is trying to instill in the squad. Despite making the playoffs for the first time in almost a decade, the Fever’s trip to postseason was short-lived, being swept by the White and the Sun in the first round.
Sides was then fired by the Fever and White fired by the Sun. Soon after moving from Sides, Indiana signed White to be the franchise’s next head coach, in hopes of capturing another championship.
“This franchise has and always will be committed to winning and I look forward to working every day to help deliver another WNBA title to the greatest basketball fans in the world,” Sides said.
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