Stephanie White eager to return home as she begins 2nd stint as Indiana Fever coach

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Stephanie White is coming home to win again.

Yes, after collecting Indiana's prestigious Miss Basketball Award in high school and leading Purdue to the 1999 NCAA title, after playing on the Indiana Fever expansion team and serving as an assistant coach during the franchise's 2012 championship run, White has decided she has some unfinished business to complete in her second stint as Indiana's head coach.

She can't wait.

So three days after Indiana hired White, she returned to Gainbridge Fieldhouse and received a rousing reception from her home-state fans with some of her new players, including Caitlin Clark, in the crowd.

“It's going to be really hard for me to not get emotional today, but you know, I think all of these familiar faces in the building here, this is coming home for me,” White said Monday during her reintroductory news conference. “It has been such an experience with this franchise for nearly 25 years, from Day 1, and the opportunity to come home and lead this young, exciting team is really exciting."

Why not?

The 47-year-old White returns to Indiana as a far more experienced coach than the one who left in 2016 just two seasons into her head coaching career with a record of 37-31. She spent the next four-plus seasons as Vanderbilt's head coach, compiling a 46-83 mark before taking a year off and eventually returning to the WNBA with the Connecticut Sun.

There, she went 55-25 and led the Sun to the league's semifinals in both seasons, earning the head coaching slot for the 2023 WNBA All-Star Game before winning the 2023 WNBA Coach of the Year Award.

But when Indiana fired Christie Sides amid rumors about White's interest in returning to Indiana, White and the Sun agreed to part ways — opening the door for her return to the Fever.

It didn't take long for the sides to reach a deal and now White, who honed her communication skills as a broadcaster, takes over one of the league's most entertaining teams, featuring back-to-back rookies of the year in Clark and Aliyah Boston.

White already has some notion of how she wants to run the Fever.

“They're an exciting team to watch and I think offensively, we can be more creative. I think we can utilize certain players in different ways," White said as Clark and Boston watched. “I'm a forward-thinking, outside the box kind of coach. I like to challenge them on a number of levels, and they are a high basketball IQ team, so I want to give them the freedom to make plays.”

But it's not just strategy that has White eager to get started.

She believes the league's highest-drawing team in both attendance and television ratings can hang another title banner, or multiple banners, while helping women's basketball reach a level former players, such as White, once used to think was possible only in their dreams.

Fever officials believe White's presence — on and off the court — will help keep the momentum building just two months after Indiana clinched its playoff berth since 2016.

“We're looking forward and this is about the next phase in the next era of kind of what we're building here,” said Kelly Krauskopf, president of basketball and business operations for the Fever. “When I had the opportunity to talk to her, it was like fortuitous or something. I couldn't even believe the timing of the opportunity. I look forward to seeing how Stephanie can communicate with (the players) and work with them and put them in a position to be successful.”

And White believes she can get the job done and add yet another chapter to her long list of accomplishments in this basketball-rich state.

“I think there's a competitive fire and a mentality there that you can't teach,” White said when asked about Clark and Boston. “And then you put it together, you've got the point guard and the center, are you kidding me? Like we've got the bookends that you want to build around and these two are the best. I'm excited about the opportunity we have to build from those starting points and build out for the longevity those two could have in Indiana.”

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FILE - Connecticut Sun head coach Stephanie White shouts instructions to her players during the first half of a WNBA basketball game against the Phoenix Mercury, Monday, July 1, 2024, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin, File)

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea on Tuesday fired at least one ballistic missile toward its eastern sea, according to the South Korean military, as the country continued its weapons demonstrations hours before the U.S. presidential elections.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff on Tuesday didn’t immediately say what type of missile it was or how far it flew. Japan’s Defense Ministry said the missile was believed to have already landed at sea.

The launch came days after North Korean leader Kim Jong Un supervised a flight test of the country’s newest intercontinental ballistic missile designed to reach the U.S. mainland. In response to that launch, the United States flew a long-range B-1B bomber in a trilateral drill with South Korea and Japan on Sunday in a show of force. That drew condemnation from Kim’s powerful sister, who on Tuesday accused the North’s rivals of raising tensions with “aggressive and adventuristic military threats.”

North Korean state media claimed last week that the Hwasong-19 it tested on Oct. 31 was “the world’s strongest” ICBM, but experts say the solid-fuel missile was too big to be useful in a war situation. Experts say the North has yet to acquire some critical technologies to build a functioning ICBM, such as ensuring that the warhead survives the harsh conditions of atmospheric re-entry.

The latest launches came after South Korean officials said the North was likely to dial up its military displays around the U.S. presidential elections to command the attention of Washington. South Korea’s military intelligence agency said last week that North Korea has also likely completed preparations for its seventh nuclear test.

Tensions between the Koreas are at their highest point in years as Kim has repeatedly flaunted his expanding nuclear weapons and missile programs, while reportedly providing Russia with munitions and troops to support President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine.

After a meeting in Seoul on Monday, South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Tae-yul and EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, expressed “deep concern” over the possibility that Russian transfers any nuclear or ballistic missile-related technology to the North in exchange for its arms and military personnel.

Such transfers would “ jeopardize the international non-proliferation efforts and threaten peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and across the globe,” they said, while calling on North Korea and Russia to immediately withdraw the troops from Russia.

In response to North Korea’s growing nuclear threats, South Korea, the United States and Japan have been expanding their combined military exercises and updating their nuclear deterrence plans built around U.S. strategic assets.

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Associated Press writer Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo contributed.

FILE - In this photo provided by the North Korean government, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, left, supervises artillery firing drills in North Korea, on March 7, 2024. Independent journalists were not given access to cover the event depicted in this image. The content of this image is as provided and cannot be independently verified. Korean language watermark on image as provided by source reads: "KCNA" which is the abbreviation for Korean Central News Agency. (Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP, File)

FILE - A soldier stands at a North Korean military guard post flying a national flag, seen from Paju, South Korea, Wednesday, June 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man, File)