The Indiana Fever gets a lot of attention these days, and a big part of the reason is obvious: the team drated Caitlin Clark as their No. 1 pick in 2024, and with her came a legion of fans, headlines, and detractors. Navigating something that's been largely missing from the team's experience in the WNBA has been tough, and it's also something the Fever has been open about.
Head coach Stephanie White admitted that watching social media conversations jump into mainstream news about the league this season has been tough. Despite efforts by the league (the WNBA raised standards for its credentialing requirements ahead of the 2026 season, though credentialing is still done at the discretion of teams), the line between what is real news and being reported as such and what's just a lot of online chatter that's being taken way too seriously has become blurred.
White has been a target of plenty of those conversations. It's absolutely normal, typical, and expected that fans will talk about coaches and coaching staffs throughout a season, and those conversations can happen on or offline. But what's been different this year is that the online conversations have been taken very seriously offline, and fans at games are starting to react to, and act on, thoughts and opinions they've gleaned from the internet.
Sometimes that is a fun thing, like when fans congregate in the stands and chat basketball. But sometimes it isn't, and sometimes it's even detrimental. White told reporters ahead of the Fever's first game against the Aces Sunday and revealed that those conversations have absolutely impacted the team this season.
"It's tough. Certainly, my therapist helps. My family helps. I have the luxury of being able to sort of minimize what gets in," White said. "But, at the end of the day, nobody likes to be a subject of ugliness from the internet and oftentimes, what happens on the internet then becomes articles in the news now. We didn't used to have that. It used to stay on the internet. It stayed on social media. And so, now, it becomes news."
White also said that she used to believe it was difficult to "be a jerk" — but now she isn't so sure. "Maybe it's harder to be kind," she continued.
Mental health is a huge topic nearly everywhere, and it's absol a prevalent conversation in the WNBA. But it seems that it's easy for some fans online to forget that mental health matters for everyone, not just their favorite players or teams.
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