{"id":914402,"date":"2026-09-29T19:04:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-29T19:04:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/914402\/"},"modified":"2026-09-29T19:04:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-29T19:04:09","slug":"fevers-stephanie-white-admits-mental-health-impact-of-toxic-wnba-discourse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/914402\/","title":{"rendered":"Fever’s Stephanie White admits mental health impact of toxic WNBA discourse"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Indiana Fever<\/a>\u2018s season is on the line Tuesday, Sept. 29, as they face a 0-1 deficit in a three-game series against the defending WNBA champion Las Vegas Aces<\/a>. Head coach Stephanie White<\/a> spoke with the media before the series began on Sunday and was asked about how she and her team have dealt with their mental health after the regular season they just endured<\/a>.<\/p>\n

White talked about leading by example, using the resources they have access to and how the internet turns into the news. She also wondered if it\u2019s just easier to be a jerk these days.<\/p>\n

MORE: Fever coach Stephanie White under fire for snubbing Caitlin Clark<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThank you for asking,\u201d White began<\/a>. \u201cIt\u2019s tough. Certainly, my therapist helps. My family helps. I have the luxury of being able to sort of minimize what gets in. 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\u2019t used to have that. It used to stay on the internet. It stayed on social media. And so, now, it becomes news.\u201d<\/p>\n

White continued, \u201cI often say, It\u2019s not hard to not be a jerk, but maybe it is. Maybe it\u2019s harder to be kind, especially in the world that we live in right now, where it seems that it\u2019s OK to call people names. It\u2019s OK to bully and berate and degrade. It\u2019s the world that we\u2019re living in right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

MORE: Sophie Cunningham has message for haters with gameday fit for Fever home finale<\/a><\/p>\n

She also said she tried to make sure her young players don\u2019t feel alone.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t have to be this way,\u201d White said. \u201cIt shouldn\u2019t be this way. But it is the reality that we\u2019re living in right now, and mental health has to be a priority.\u201d<\/p>\n

White and the Fever play at 6:30 p.m. ET Tuesday on Prime Video.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Enjoy free coverage of the top news & trending stories with The Big Lead Newsletter<\/a> \u2014<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Indiana Fever\u2018s season is on the line Tuesday, Sept. 29, as they face a 0-1 deficit in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":914403,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[26549,49,48,2803,82,2807,630],"class_list":["post-914402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-alert","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-indiana-fever","tag-sports","tag-stephanie-white","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/914402","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=914402"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/914402\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/914403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=914402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=914402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=914402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}