{"id":737433,"date":"2026-07-01T18:52:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-01T18:52:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/737433\/"},"modified":"2026-07-01T18:52:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-01T18:52:09","slug":"fever-coach-stephanie-white-denounces-online-hate-after-alyssa-thomas-reveals-death-threats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/737433\/","title":{"rendered":"Fever coach Stephanie White denounces online hate after Alyssa Thomas reveals death threats"},"content":{"rendered":"

Indiana Fever coach Stephanie White denounced \u201cunacceptable\u201d fan behavior Wednesday in response to Phoenix Mercury forward Alyssa Thomas revealing that she has received hateful online messages<\/a>, including death threats.<\/p>\n

White added that the WNBA is about \u201cinclusiveness\u201d and \u201celevating marginalized communities.\u201d Thomas was assessed a flagrant foul 2 penalty, fined $1,000 and suspended one game<\/a> last week for pushing her right fist into Fever star Caitlin Clark\u2019s throat while they were tangled up on the floor.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a league, there\u2019s been so much more toxicity, racism, homophobia, straight out nonsense. Hate (and) nonsense,\u201d White told reporters at Wednesday\u2019s practice. \u201cAnd it is absolutely unacceptable. Most of this (is) coming from the online community. Most of this, in my heart of hearts, I believe is not coming from WNBA fans, Indiana Fever fans. I believe that this is people who are using our league, using our players to further divisive agendas.\u201d<\/p>\n

White, who coached Thomas for two seasons with the Connecticut Sun, initially called Thomas\u2019 flagrant foul on Clark \u201ccrazy\u201d and \u201cdangerous.\u201d The play was originally a no-call, but the WNBA later upgraded it to a flagrant foul 2 penalty, and suspended Thomas for the first time in her 13-year WNBA career. White said last week<\/a> that she was disappointed the officials missed the incident in real time, but added that she was pleased the league reviewed it and punished Thomas.<\/p>\n

The hate Thomas has received since then, however, has crossed the line, White said Wednesday. Thomas, a six-time All-Star, called out the league for remaining silent \u201cwhile having people threatening our lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not even about the suspension. If that\u2019s what they felt was necessary in that moment, then so be it,\u201d Thomas told reporters Tuesday. \u201c\u2026 I think the biggest thing is it\u2019s just about our safety. We\u2019re so concerned with the safety on the court, but time and time again we\u2019re having people threatening our lives, leaking addresses out there, putting crazy pictures (online) that have nothing to do with basketball.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, White defended Thomas\u2019 comments, which she said she hadn\u2019t heard until Tuesday night. The coach noted that there\u2019s a difference between fairly criticizing a player\u2019s on-court performance, or even the incident that resulted in Thomas\u2019 suspension, and harassing them online with personal and targeted attacks.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith fans, and the love\/hate relationship that they have with players and teams, that is going to come,\u201d White said. \u201cBut it\u2019s not hard to not be a jerk. And if you are one of these people that are online doing this, do not call yourself a WNBA fan.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur league is about inclusiveness,\u201d White continued. \u201cOur league is about competition. Our league is about elevating. Elevating women, elevating marginalized communities (and) including, empowering and being inclusive of all different walks of life. That is what our league has always been about.\u201d<\/p>\n

White added that \u201cnone of us can control social media,\u201d but she, like Thomas, said the WNBA should continue to explore any avenue it can to further protect players from online hate.<\/p>\n

Thomas will return from her suspension Thursday when the Mercury host the Seattle Storm. The Fever, meanwhile, will resume their season Sunday at the Las Vegas Aces.<\/p>\n

Phoenix will host Indiana on July 9 in the final regular-season matchup between the teams, which could be the first time Thomas and Clark share the court since their incident.<\/p>\n

Clark, who has dealt with back issues all season, missed the Fever\u2019s last game after aggravating her back and has not practiced with the team since. Clark is doing individual workouts, according to White, but there is still no definitive timeline of when she could return.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery day is a little bit better,\u201d White said of Clark. \u201cAnd again, I reiterate for those who haven\u2019t had back issues, every day can be something different. You can feel really good in practices or workouts or warmups or whatever, and then you go to bed at night, wake up and it\u2019s different. \u2026 The back is a nagging injury that manifests itself in different ways.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Indiana Fever coach Stephanie White denounced \u201cunacceptable\u201d fan behavior Wednesday in response to Phoenix Mercury forward Alyssa Thomas…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":737434,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[2839,99,434],"class_list":["post-737433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-indiana-fever","tag-sports","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/737433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=737433"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/737433\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/737434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=737433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=737433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=737433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}