Stephanie White has been named the Coach of the Year in the WNBA for the 2023 season.
The Connecticut Sun head coach led the team to a second-place finish in a competitive Eastern Conference that saw five of the six teams earn playoff berths. The Sun are seeded third in the reshuffled WNBA Playoffs.
Some thought of this as a rebuild year for the Sun, after losing former league MVP Jonquel Jones and others in the offseason.
Before being hired by the Sun in 2023 after the departure of two-time Coach of the Year Curt Miller, White had coached the Vanderbilt Commodores for five pretty unremarkable seasons.
As a player, White was a star for Purdue in the late 1990s, helping the school to a national championship in 1999.
White hasn’t been shy about being LGBTQ and raising a family.
“I consider myself an advocate because I have a platform to influence people,” she said in 2015.
Out coaches Becky Hammon and Cheryl Reeve also received 2023 Coach of the Year votes. White and the Sun are now locked in a Playoff series with Reeve and the Minnesota Lynx.
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