Micah Beckwith, the Lieutenant Governor of Indiana, has called on the Fever to fire coach Stephanie White after she bizarrely backed DiJonai Carrington in the wake of her brutal foul on Sophie Cunningham.
Indiana Fever’s Cunningham was shooting a layup in the first quarter of Saturday’s game when Chicago Sky’s Carrington came from behind and hit her in the head and neck, knocking her to the court as the shot went in.
The Sky star was assessed a flagrant 2 and ejected from the game, with both Cunningham and her teammate Caitlin Clark seen waving as Carrington headed to the locker room.
Following her ejection, Carrington posted on social media from inside the locker room. ‘WHITE PRIVILEGE @indianafever,’ she wrote.
But despite that, and the vicious nature of the foul, White issued a staunch defense of Carrington in her post-game press conference.
‘One of the things about ‘Nai is she’s going to play her butt off, man,’ said White, who coached Carrington for two years in her last job with the ConnecticutΒ Sun.
The Lieutenant Governor of Indiana has called on the Indiana Fever to fire Stephanie White
White backed DiJonai Carrington in the wake of her brutal foul on Sophie Cunningham
‘She’s gonna compete, no one’s gonna go walking in for a easy layup, so I don’t oppose the hard foul. But I also don’t think she intentionally went for the neck.’
White’s response angered Beckwith, a Republican, and he took to social media on Sunday night to call for White to be fired. ‘Okβ¦ The Indiana Fever need to let Stephanie White go,’ he posted.
‘No solid coach would ever take the side of the opposing teamβs player who committed a flagrant foul on one of your own players. Terrible coaching! The Fever need to defend their players.’
The reaction from White was widely blasted on the internet with accounts openly calling for her to lose her job.
Right-wing pundit Jason Whitlock posted, ‘I will never utter a word in Stephanie White’s defense again. Never. She’s sick. Must be fired. What a joke.’
Despite the intensity of her foul, Carrington took issue with her ejection and posted from the locker room that she was removed due to ‘white privilege.’
Cunningham took issue with Carrington’s claim she benefitted from ‘white privilege’ by saying, ‘This has nothing to do with race. Last year, I did the same thing and I got kicked out. And I deserved to be kicked out. There’s no reason even to play that card.’
Carrington continued to stoke the tensions with a post hyping up the next Fever-Sky game on August 23. The Sky will hope to get some revenge after Caitlin Clark and the Fever came out victorious with a 90-86 win.
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