Caitlin Clark Out Last-Minute vs Fire Sparks Added Controversy About Stephanie White and CC's Health

Indexed: 2026-05-21

[00:00:05]Welcome to another episode of the Adrien Ross Show, where sports and culture connects. Before we get into the topic of this video, I have to show you this.

[00:00:18]Look at this.

[00:00:21]Is this beautiful or what? This is so beautiful. I love love this color. CC's logo t-shirt. So, a public huge heartfelt thank you to subscriber and member, an incredible encourager and supporter of the Adrienne Ross Show, Banette. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I'm so so grateful. This is so beautiful. I have a navy one and I have a a white one, but I don't have this color. I love it. Let's go. Okay, so I wanted to share that. Oh, wait. And by the way, I don't know if you know, but these, if you don't have one of these, has her name like the the her signature, her autograph right here. Anyway, okay.

[00:01:15]So, let's talk.

[00:01:17]I wasn't really gonna deal with this and then I was going to deal with it in a in the video in which I talk about the game, the recap or my overview of Indiana Fever playing the Portland Fire last night. But I don't want either of those to be too long, either the this one or that one to be too long. So, I just decided, let's just let's just get this out of the way. the part that a lot of people are talking about, concerned about, and I'm gonna just share with you how Adrien Ross sees it. Now, you don't have to see it that way. And if you don't see it my way, again, make sure that you read the channel guidelines before your fingers go, okay? Because one thing you don't have to worry about me doing and that is giving someone else's perspective instead of my own or being bullied into giving someone else's opinion. That's just not going to happen. So, let me just tell it to you as I see it. Caitlyn Clark, maybe a couple hours before the game was to begin against the Portland Fire, was announced as not playing. So there was an update because the day before the news was the ortho indie report was that all is well, everybody's healthy, rocking and rolling. And then that update came. Now I didn't get to watch the game live. As you know, I imagine it was a Wednesday night. I lead a class at church on Wednesday night. So I had to like actually order DVR. I didn't have cloud DVR, but I ordered it because now WNBA league pass is making you wait till the next day to watch. That ain't going to work for me. So, I got uh DVR service so that I could watch it later. So, I was close to being ready to leave to go to church when I saw that. And so, my initial reaction was, "Oh, great." And by oh, great, I mean not great. Just said back. And of course, we know that she talked about her her back. Sometimes the rib pops out, etc. As someone who goes to the chiropractor every week, I understand. Sometimes you just need that adjustment. It's sore. Mine is sore right now because I didn't go this week and I can't get in till Tuesday anyway.

[00:03:41]So, I was like, "Oh, man. Bummer." That was my first thought. And then my second thought was to pray for her. So, I did.

[00:03:47]I prayed for Caitlyn. And then I just went on about my business. I knew it was going to be a whole lot a lot a lot of because there's going to be a whole lot a lot of no matter what. So, I like I said, prayed for her, got myself ready, went on to church, came back, stayed off social media. So, I didn't find out the results of the game, and then I watched the game, and I'll get to the game in a separate video.

[00:04:12]People, let's Well, there's a lot of stuff going on out there, but I know one thing that people are talking about is the communication piece. And I'm au I'm a communications person myself. I my pet peeve is poor communication and I usually you hear me talk about questions like I think journalists should be asking important questions and I think sometimes they don't go far enough that like they need to ask a follow-up question and I can't say that they didn't do that. I feel like the reporters asked the questions when the news came out pregame, postgame, people talking about it. This is the summation.

[00:05:00]And I'm not going to go to all the comments that were made about Caitlyn being out, but this is the summation of it.

[00:05:08]That Caitlyn woke up with her back sore and so she didn't participate in the practice, but I I guess she had a she got a workout in, but she didn't practice. And then the decision was made late when you consider what time the game was going to start that she wouldn't participate. No one from from what I understand used the word injury. And what I gathered from what was said is that Caitlyn, this is a quote, Caitlyn is quote healthy.

[00:05:45]This is an abundance of caution. And to the question of why it wasn't announced earlier, it was we didn't know she wasn't going to play.

[00:05:58]So just telling you what we've heard out there. I didn't hear the word injury.

[00:06:03]I'm hearing abundance of caution. I'm hearing healthy. I'm hearing she woke up sore. And this is a time to to get ahead of things and not push. It would typically be simple enough. But then there's that piece that it was so late that people are pushing. But again, if it's true that they didn't know, then they could not have announced it any sooner. Now, I have no way of knowing if they knew. If they didn't know, I don't know. You think whatever you want to think. I I have zero idea of whether they knew sooner or not. All I know is if they did not know sooner, they could not have told us sooner. Now, the way this all works, rumor is that there'll probably be a fine because it was so late. If if Caitlyn is truly not feeling 100% and you want to use an abundance of caution, if I'm in that situation, then I'll take the fine. I'm not going to risk my players health to avoid a fine.

[00:07:11]So, I don't know if they're going to get fined or not. I'm certainly not suggesting that they should, but there's that.

[00:07:18]So in normal situations where there wasn't so much noise and where there was trust, people would be disappointed, especially if you bought that ticket because that's I mean I knew I know that if I and I thought about this yesterday like if I had planned to go and watch and I'm a Caitlyn fan then I'm going to be disappointed. I am not crashing out but I'm going to be disappointed. So in normal situations, people would be like, "Man, that's a bummer and then they're just disappointed and they cheer for the team and they move on."

[00:07:58]But when people don't trust and you can determine whether that's legitimate or not, but if you don't trust, then now you're like, "Well, we don't believe them and they knew all along." or this one.

[00:08:15]Caitlyn is suspended, which I'm just like, really? But anyway, Caitlyn is suspended and she's really really hurt. She's really, really injured. They don't want to tell us or I I mean, I've heard everything. Caitlyn's mad at them and they told her that unless she apologizes to the coach, she can't play. I mean, just all the conspiracy theories. There's so much noise out there.

[00:08:43]I I don't know what it is about I don't know if it's all teams that follow all teams closely, but I I think about Aaliyah Boston's injury during Unrivaled even. So, it wasn't even the fever, honestly. During Unrivaled, she said as little as possible about the injury. It's like I've never and I said this before, I've never seen a situation where it's so hush where um even on her podcast after that AB was just like, "Oh yeah, it's a it's a leg injury and that was that." So that tells me she doesn't want to talk about it and they have to honor that as an organization talking about unrivaled and she apparently didn't want to say a whole lot like Sky Agnes recently said Maniscus. That was the first I ever heard him this is because I wasn't hearing anything other than you know yeah it's a bummer I got this this thing and and moving on they she didn't so that tells me for whatever reason and it's her body she didn't want to share too much and then she was out recently and that again not a whole lot of time spent on that and when she spoke on it she's like yeah I'm good I'm ready to go and that's it. So I don't I don't know and I don't pretend to know all the inner workings.

[00:09:59]It sounds to me again that this is an abundance of caution. It's not an injury per se, at least from what I from what I've heard, what they have said. And does Caitlyn not want to talk about it?

[00:10:12]I I don't know. I don't I don't know.

[00:10:14]And it would be foolish for me to spend a long time and losing sleep speculating over that. The bottom line is that the decision was made for her not to play. I don't know if they knew sooner and didn't tell. I I don't it's I I just don't guess I spend a whole lot of time worrying about it honestly. Um health reasons do what you got to do for the player. Now if you know early especially when people have paid money etc then absolutely you should like you should say what the deal is if if you know I'm not one of those people however that feels like every inch of a person's life or a team has to be told.

[00:11:00]I know this is the age of social media where people want instant answers to people to to I'm just not one of those people who I'm not sure how much needs to be said about everything. However, in a situation where pan fans are paying money then obviously you want to share what you know I I would think. But again they said they don't know. So, please don't come in the comments at me saying, "Well, Adrian, you know they know. You know they lying. You know, it's No, I don't. I'm not a part of the Indiana Fever organization." I don't know. All I know is that I think in the situation like this, if you knew sooner, you should have said something sooner. But something tells me that if they knew sooner, they would have said something because of the fine situation. I don't know. I'm not losing any sleep over it.

[00:12:00]Caitlyn seems to be fine. And time will tell, but I'm not buying the she's suspended. I'm not buying she and Stephanie White hate each other. I'm not I'm not buying any of that at all.

[00:12:16]That's that's really all I have to say because anything else is just I I don't know. What I do know though is that there's obviously no problem between Caitlyn and Stephanie White concerning the the graate or whatever it is. I mean, iron sharpens iron. I've said this many times on this channel, so if you've been around, you've heard me say it, whether on live streams or on other people's channel. You would be hardpressed to find any star athlete who doesn't at times butt heads with a coach. That's just the way it goes sometimes.

[00:12:57]Uh I saw it on the high school level. Of course, I I'll I'll show you a little bit of grace, but you're not gonna keep coming at me um as your coach in public.

[00:13:08]And that's not what we saw. We saw some kind of heated conversation there and whatever. It's not a big deal. It it it happens. It especially happens when people are passionate about what they do and you know that like if you've coached people even if you've taught people I would sit back with my seventh graders at times and I'd have them in groups.

[00:13:28]I've had many I've had multiple situations and I could hear them bickering trying to get that convers trying to get that uh project done or whatever. And then when we would debrief after it was all said and done, I would say to them, "Yeah, you think I don't know you guys are we're going at it."

[00:13:44]And I'm like, "I enjoy that." What do you mean, Miss Ross? You Because people who aren't invested, people who aren't passionate don't have those moments because they just don't care enough.

[00:13:56]Right? But when you when I see that there's some fire in you, I know that you care. I know that you're passionate.

[00:14:04]And when you have more than one person passionate, sometimes you you may butt heads where you have disagreements and people on the outside looking in are like and they're just like they're walking arm in arm and it's it's you know you want there to be mutual respect.

[00:14:21]But iron sharpens iron. People make each other better. And when you're passionate sometimes it just it just happens. So that that's that's neither here nor there. So let's just take a look at two things. One, this is Caitlyn and her teammates in the locker room after the win against Seattle. This is where they supposedly had this huge fight and with Brienne January and then pulling away from the coach, all that. This is what h this is what you see. And then I'm going to show you the two of them before the game against the Portland Fire on Wednesday. Going to X Assassin's Back on X posted this. When the camera shot cuts to Caitlyn cheesing in this video, you can tell they've moved past whatever issues there might have been in the Storm game, like any healthy relationship. All right.

[00:15:26]>> Okay. So, you saw the high fives there and then coach is speaking here. I'm just going to fast forward through some of this to get to Caitlyn.

[00:15:35]So, here you see Caitlyn smiling. We move a little further. Looking at her coach smiling. So, for those of you who are huge fans of Caitlyn, you want her to be smiling. You want her to be happy. You somehow thought that just because she was passionate that she was miserable.

[00:15:56]There you are. Same game in the locker room smiling, looking at her coach.

[00:16:01]That's Well, there it is. Now, let's take a look at the game on Wednesday on the sidelines.

[00:16:11]It's Caitlyn. It's Coach Stephanie. Let me jump in here and let you know that over on my second channel, Adrien Ross squared, where I square off from A to Z, I have a video up called Reckless Social Media Culture Causes Contrasting Stance from Robin Lundberg, where I'd normally agree. You can check that out over on the second channel. The link to the channel is in the description of this video. And this account is Caitlyn Zuluits AE. And it says Caitlyn Clark and coach Stephanie White during the game yesterday. No sound.

[00:17:13]Okay. So, again, if you want to know that Caitlyn is okay and that she's happy and smiling and doesn't hate her coach, then I mean, here it is.

[00:17:30]And here they cover their mouths, of course, because they don't want anybody to be able to read their lips and what they're saying. But this is not the picture of two people who hate each other or a player who's just been confined to the bench or anything like that.

[00:17:47]So, if you are a Caitlyn Clark fan and a fan of this team, it should make you happy. Again, don't be upset with me. Like, I'm not I'm just showing you what what's out there. I'm just showing you what's there that you you can do with it whatever you want. I I know it's hard with all the noise going on around you, but but there it is. So, in terms of Caitlyn's health, I would much rather see her not play than to see her play. And then there was a big old situation. Same thing like in the game Seattle game. Uh yeah, I think it was the Seattle game, right? Yes, the Seattle game. and she had been playing so many games and then they had the overtime and she asked actually she asked to be taken out of that game and that's just what you do. That's like typical basketball. So now I'm going to take you to an ex account and this ex account shares something from someone on Tik Tok and this person on Tik Tok was apparently sitting next to Caitlyn's mother at the Portland game. I'm not going to play it. I'm just going to show you that uh what the image looks like and then I'll put the link in the description of this video because it's like four minutes and I don't want to play all that. But you can follow up by going into the description of this video for that link. So H Praisers has posted this again from someone from Tik Tok and the caption is now this is real journalism all conspiracies debunked. And then it gives Mrs. Uh, I don't know how to pronounce her name, but this is the person on Tik Tok.

[00:19:27]Always has the best info. And again, this person on Tik Tok sat next to Caitlyn's mom. She said the trainer came over and talked to the mom about Caitlyn and it's just really good stuff for you to take a look at and, you know, do what do with it what you will. That's what I have for you on that. I've given you my thoughts about it, about the communication, about trust, about not trusting, about all all of those anything I had to say. I I had I said it. I don't know anything else other than what I said. I don't really have any other opinion about it. It's let's go CC, let's go fever. Let's go get more wins. And I mentioned that I will be covering the game, recapping or giving an overview of the game in a separate video. So, one more time, this is fire.

[00:20:22]All right, everyone. Again, feel free to leave a comment, but I would suggest you check out the guidelines, remind yourself. All right, I'll catch you next time, God willing. God bless you, abundance.