INDIANAPOLIS — Indiana Fever‘s two-time WNBA All-Star Kelsey Mitchell has a trademark toughness about her. A toughness that dates back to her ‘Bitty Ball’ days.
Mitchell played Bitty Ball, a co-ed basketball program for young kids, when she was growing up in Cincinnati. She was already showing signs of her talent, and she ended up starting on her team — much to the dismay of her boy teammates.
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“One of the young men from the neighborhood community, he got so mad he couldn’t take Kelsey’s ball, and he hit her,” said Cheryl Mitchell, Kelsey’s mom. “And she chased that little boy across the court until she got the ball back. It was the funniest little thing, it was so funny, and me and the other guy that was coaching, we laughed until we cried about this thing. She was so determined that she’s gonna get that young man about that ball. He got mad because she scored on him, but then after that, she played like she’s always played with guys.”
Athletics has always been part of the Mitchell family; Kelsey’s parents met at Eastern Kentucky University — Cheryl played basketball and her father, Mark, was a linebacker on the football team. Kelsey and her three siblings, including her twin sister Chelsea and older twin brothers Kevin and Cameron, always gravitated toward sports.
Later in her young basketball career, it wasn’t enough for Kelsey to just be a starter on one AAU team. She was extremely competitive; she had a constant desire to get better, an innate need to be the best she could be.
That included dominating on a boys AAU team, even if her teammates didn’t like it at first.
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“With the boys, they will get very competitive because they were saying, like, ‘She a girl,’” Cheryl said, “and the coach will say, ‘She a girl that can play basketball. You worried about her being a girl, but she can play.’”
Eventually, Kelsey earned the respect of her teammates. She could make them better. She could win games for them.
Kelsey and Chelsea grew up playing against boys. They constantly played against Kevin, Cameron and Mark, who became a basketball coach after his football career and trained all of Kelsey’s siblings.
It helped her develop that toughness. One that makes her, standing at 5-8, one of the best players in the WNBA. One that allows her to play through a fractured finger to start the 2025 season. One that helped her through the sudden death of her father in 2024.
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Coming into the this season, Kelsey is surrounded by multiple veterans for the first time in her eight-year career with the Fever. With a new coaching staff, new front office and new culture, she’s ready for a breath of fresh air.
“It feels fresh, it feels fun,” Mitchell told IndyStar. “I’m excited for the space I’m in, and I welcome the new energy. Welcome the new energy and just be part of the solution.”
Training with ‘Coach Mitch’
When Kelsey would train with her dad growing up, he wasn’t “dad.” He was “Coach Mitch.”
“Her dad had pretty much taught her anything and everything about basketball,” Cheryl said. “Sometimes, it’s so funny when you ask about their relationship, she’ll call him — so you know what she’s talking about basketball — she’s like, ‘Coach Mitch.’ So it ain’t dad. It is Coach Mitch, like, ‘Coach Mitch, I got a question for you.’”
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Every day, Kelsey’s grandpa would drive her from Princeton High School, where she went to school in the Cincinnati suburbs, to Taft High School near downtown, where Mark was a physical education teacher and the boys basketball coach.
She would practice with his players, do individual work with him, including speed training and endurance drills. Every day, her dad pushed her to get better.
At night, Kelsey would come into her parents’ room, and they would watch film from her AAU tournaments.
“Back in the day, we had the video cameras, and we filmed AAU games, and we’d go back and watch the game,” Cheryl said. “And she’d be like, ‘Oh, man,’ and her and her dad would just sit down, and they would just look at film. He taught her, really, how to dissect film.”
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Basketball was something they constantly talked about, day in and day out. It became even more ingrained (if that was even possible) when Mark got a job as an Ohio State women’s basketball coach in 2013 — the same year Kelsey and Chelsea joined the Buckeyes as freshmen.
He was with Kelsey for her entire four-year career at Ohio State, coaching her as she was three-time Big Ten Player of the Year and broke numerous Ohio State and conference records. She finished her Buckeyes career in 2018 as the second-leading scorer in NCAA women’s basketball history, trailing only Kelsey Plum’s record at the time.
“She left an incredible legacy from her time here at Ohio State, both on and off the court,” Buckeyes coach Kevin McGuff told IndyStar. “She set so many records. Obviously, was an All-American, was All-Big Ten, was a Big Ten Player of the Year. But I think as importantly as all that, she was just a great kid and a great representative of our program. And I was just really thankful to have had the opportunity to coach her.”
To get to that legendary status, one that put her in the Ohio State Athletics Hall of Fame, she needed to work harder than ever before — and harder than all of her teammates.
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Mark made sure of it. He called out things Kelsey was doing wrong, even if one of her teammates was doing the same thing. It was never her teammate getting called out; always her.
At first, she didn’t know why he was singling her out. In retrospect, though, she understands.
“Even if I may have felt like personally, like, in my feelings, like, ‘Damn, she did it wrong, too,’” Kelsey said, “he looked at it from a standpoint of, you can’t get it wrong, can’t afford the possibility of getting it wrong yourself. That was the kind of accountability that my dad had.”
Mark was there for everything. From Ohio State’s Big Ten championships in 2017 and ‘18 to sitting at the 2018 WNBA draft when Kelsey was selected No. 2 overall (behind only Las Vegas’ A’ja Wilson).
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He, along with the rest of Kelsey’s family, constantly made the two-hour trip from Cincinnati to Indianapolis to watch her play. In the games he couldn’t come to, he would find a way to watch. And Kelsey would call him after every game, wanting to talk about how she played and what she could do to get better.
From high school, to their four years at Ohio State together, to her WNBA career, Mark would always be Kelsey’s first call after something happened — whether it was good or bad.
“I was able to go and talk to him about every walk of life, but with basketball specifically, he was able to break down, understand from an athlete what I needed for me,” Kelsey said. “And he wouldn’t shy away from that accountability. He’ll hold me accountable for what I needed to do.”
It was a shock for the entire Mitchell family when Mark died unexpectedly in March 2024. He was 56. He was a beloved coach at Taft, Ohio State and then Wilberforce University in Ohio, and tributes started pouring in: “I had never heard from so many people in my life,” Kelsey said.
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Still, the Mitchell family was left wondering why it happened. Wondering why he would be taken from them so soon. It was a question they would never get the answer to.
“We had that conversation,” Cheryl said. “I said, ‘We don’t know why,’ I said, ‘But you know, we can’t question God or who, whatever you believe in.’ Whatever your belief was at that point, I said, but we don’t know why, but it happened.”
In the months immediately following her dad’s death, Kelsey relied on family, friends, teammates, therapy and religion to help her get through the worst time of her life.
As a religious person, Kelsey said, she always feels her dad’s spirit with her — even though there is an unimaginable hurt whenever she thinks of him not being here with her. She thinks of him whenever she plays basketball, whenever she uses his teachings in her life.
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“God, family and my dad’s spirit,” Kelsey said. “I think everything that my dad taught me about the course of my life, I was able to characterize, even though he’s gone. Does it suck physically not having him and seeing him? Hell yeah, it’s a horrible feeling that I got to deal with every day. But I obviously took everything he taught me to be able to be instilled in me today.
“… Mental health is real, therapy, I did all that good stuff to allow me to be at this point, but I feel confident that my dad lives in me every day.”
Basketball as a ‘love language’
Kelsey’s older brother, Kevin, took over her training after their dad’s death. Kevin, the boys basketball coach at Oyler High School in Cincinnati, brought his team to a 22-2 record in 2024-25 for their first Cincinnati Metro Athletic Conference-Blue championship in program history, and earned coach of the year in the process.
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It’s not the same as being coached by her dad, but it’s pretty close.
“Mark, you know, when they got on the floor, he’s coach, he’s not dad. And so I think that’s the difference in her brother being her brother. He’s still her brother,” Cheryl said. “But he did pretty good … She came in and was like, ‘Man, he can train. He’s got this down pat.’”
Kelsey and Kevin do a lot of the same training she did with her dad; they study film after games and practice sessions, and they’ll immediately talk about what he thinks can make her a better player. He’ll make the trip to Indianapolis, too, to help her work out and work on those skills.
He also helped Kelsey start her grassroots basketball program, KelzHoop Elite. The program started with one boys team, Cheryl said, but has grown to include two girls teams, and the program is run by Kelsey, Chelsea and Kevin.
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It’s a program that was built out of her dad’s legacy. She wants to pass on everything he taught her to her AAU kids.
“The poetry and motion of basketball is a love language,” Kelsey said. “… And I think that love language instilled what it is now, and my dad did that with everybody he taught, and now I get a chance to pay it forward. So I started my AAU grassroots program with my kids back in Cincinnati now, and I get to do the same thing. That’s what I think my dad was for, in a way. Everything I was taught, I’ve got to pay it forward.”
It’s a program that allows any player who wants to participate to compete, as there aren’t any cuts. Players’ skill levels don’t matter, but they have to be willing to put in effort every time they step on the floor for practice and games.
That’s something Kelsey’s dad taught her — you can’t coach effort.
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“She said, ‘I don’t care about your skill set, but if I gotta coach effort, this is not a place for you,’” Cheryl said. “I think that’s the only little pet peeve she has with them, because she knows, and she explains to them, ‘I put a lot of work into this sport.’ And she said, ‘When I see people not taking this seriously, kind of bothers me.’”
All the work Kelsey has put into the game she loves culminated to the moment when she was cored by the Fever in January. The moment the Fever saw her as such a crucial part of their franchise they put the rare core tag on her, something they have only used five times in their 25-year history — the first since 2018.
“We only want players that will work hard and that are all about winning,” Fever president Kelly Krauskopf said. “They’re not just coming here to play, they’re coming here to win, and they’re coming here with that mindset. And they have to love the game, they have to love the process… and that’s Kelsey Mitchell, that’s 100% her, and that’s what I valued. Those are the kinds of players that I want to build around. She was really important in starting that process.”
Indiana Fever guard Kelsey Mitchell poses for a photo Wednesday, April 30, 2025, during the Indiana Fever media day at Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis.
Still, Kelsey went through the free agency process for the first time in her career this past offseason. Her three-year extension with the Fever expired following the 2024 season, and after seven years in Indianapolis, she wanted to test out free agency and see what could be out there for her.
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The core tag technically gave the Fever exclusive negotiating rights for Kelsey, but that didn’t necessarily mean she had to stay. That was evident multiple times this past offseason: Connecticut cored Alyssa Thomas, Dallas cored Satou Sabally and Las Vegas cored Kelsey Plum, and all three ended up on different teams.
Coming to the Fever in 2018, Mitchell has seen the lows of the Fever franchise firsthand — from missing the playoffs for seven straight years to having to play in a barn on the Indiana State Fairgrounds because of renovations to Gainbridge Fieldhouse.
She’s also started to see the highs of being on the Fever, including becoming a two-time All-Star in 2023 and ‘24, the attention that came in 2024 with Caitlin Clark, sellout crowds, nationally televised games and making the playoffs for the first time in her career last season.
With a new front office in Krauskopf and general manager Amber Cox, along with a new coach in Stephanie White, Mitchell saw the vision of a consistently successful Fever franchise — and how much she was valued in Indianapolis.
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“You go where you’re wanted,” Kelsey said. “Obviously, everybody knows I’ve been here my whole career, and I’ve seen it at the low, at the middle, and hopefully I’m seeing it at its peak. I was able to talk to them about belonging and the longevity of what I want and winning, like I’m gonna do what it takes to win.”
Even more importantly, her family is under two hours away — as they have been her entire career. Cheryl comes to every Fever home game, and her siblings come when they’re able to.
She talks to her sister every day, she’s able to go and see her mom on off days, and her brother is able to easily come to Indianapolis to help her train.
As an athletic family at their core, they bond through basketball. And Kelsey wouldn’t give that up for anything.
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“It’s my family support, and just like my reason to keep going, because we’ve been through a lot,” Kelsey said. “Individually, each person has dealt with death different. And so basketball has been a love language. We all get to use basketball to see me play. So how they see me is how I see them. And so that relationship and that job being close is everything.”
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This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Fever news: How basketball helped Kelsey Mitchell cope with dad’s death
