Hornet standout to be inducted in Frazee-Vergas Hall of Fame on Oct. 5

By Robert Williams

Editor

Former Frazee-Vergas and Northern State University basketball standout Alexis Tappe was recently promoted to First Assistant Coach in her third season with the Missouri Valley College women’s basketball program in Marshall, Missouri.  ¶  Tappe spent the past two seasons as a graduate assistant and went to Missouri Valley College after earning her two bachelor’s degrees in human performance and fitness, and physical education, with minors in health, psychology, marketing and coaching from NCAA Division II Northern State (S.D.).  ¶  Tappe was a successful student-athlete on the women’s basketball team at Northern State, capturing one conference championship, four North Division conference titles, two conference postseason tournament championships, and part of five NCAA tournament teams. She was captain of the team from 2016-18.

After her playing days, Tappe went to the other side of the country for 2.5 years between leaving Northern State and arriving in Missouri by way of California, Idaho and Frazee.

She coached at a private school and substituted in a couple districts while transferring her education degree to California. 

The following year she taught at Windsor Middle School and was the Athletic Director there also while continuing to coach at Cardinal Union in Santa Rosa, California.

During COVID, she moved to Idaho after regional fires and the pandemic shut down California.

She then moved home and taught in Frazee for a year prior to applying for her grad assistant position in Missouri.

“I applied to about 12 schools and heard back from five with positions,” she said. “Missouri Valley had the total package.”

A couple of those other schools presented better opportunities in terms of team talent and prospects to coach, including a national championship team.

“It all worked out how it was supposed to,” said Tappe.

After completing her two years as a grad assistant under Missouri Valley head coach Ben Lister, Tappe had four competing job offers.

“They fought tooth and nail for me to stay here so I accepted the job as a first assistant,” she said. “They checked the boxes I needed to be checked.”

Coaching has been part of Tappe’s life, even going back to her high school days.

“I always helped out, even in high school too, my cousin Taylor (Tappe) Greenwood, we helped run T-ball one summer; I’ve helped with summer league basketball and volleyball, and bumblebee basketball,” she said.

At Northern State, between her junior and super senior year, her head coach Curt Fredrickson kept asking her about coaching.

“Just in practices or how I would see the game or talk to him about the game, he said, ‘You have a good foundation of basketball I.Q. already’ and in college we had almost 300 set plays and I knew that playbook better than him,” said Tappe.

Much like her high school career, where Tappe could play all over the floor despite leading the offense from the point, at Northern she did more of the same.

“I could go in and play any position,” she said.

An injury caused Tappe to redshirt her senior season.

She contributed to the team by coaching during plays from the opposite end of the floor as Fredrickson. Post-game conversations led to more discussions about pursuing a coaching career and Tappe took that to California and back to Frazee to test out.

“I can kind of give back and help the youth that I want to mold into better people on and off the court but also give them opportunities to pursue their passion like I was able to do,” she said.

Her five years at Northern gave her an up close look at success. Fredrickson is the historical wins leader at Northern and one of only two Division II coaches with more than 700 wins. He totaled 846 victories in 39 seasons.

“We had so much success,” said Tappe. “The most we ever lost in one season was seven games in my five years.”

Tappe went to Northern after leading Frazee-Vergas to its best season record of 19-7 in 2012-13.

“We started becoming successful during my junior and senior year,” she said. “We had success later on because the group that I had played with forever – we started in fourth grade. We finally got to the top and got to take care of business. Should we have finished better? Yes, because we had tons of talent. You get what you get and you can’t really play the what-if game anymore.”

Going from one consistent team to another at Northern was a “blessing in disguise.”

Tappe was able to find her role quickly at the guard and forward positions where she was not mandated to score as a priority. Her adaptability made her a contributing factor on a team that reached the NCAA tournament every year.

“It was nice to be a part of that culture; I got to cut down a net twice; get a conference championship ring and whatnot,” she said.

Missouri Valley head coach Ben Lister has also been deep into the playoffs having led a team to the NCCAA Division II final four. Tappe officially joins the staff with Murray Knox, who came with Lister from rival Baker University, and Tom Hayob, in his 12th year at MVC.

“We’re ready to build and get there,” Tappe said. “We’re returning literally everybody and we have a really good transfer and freshman class.”

Tappe is in charge of the team’s strength, agility and conditioning, along with individual player development during the preseason. A month from now, the staff roles will be defined more precisely for the season.

“It’s nice to be around very experienced coaches, especially when I’m in the early stages of breaking the cusp at the collegiate level,” she said.

Much of Tappe’s current success stems back to her formative years and high school career with Coach Dave Conzemius.

“I’m still in contact with him all the time; he’s super positive,” said Tappe. 

Conzemius is introducing Tappe during her induction into the Frazee-Vergas High School Hall of Fame later this October.

“He’s been a positive influence as I’ve aged, as well as in high school,” said Tappe. “We bonded from the get-go, even when he was an assistant for Head Coach Tim Swenson when I was younger and coming up on varsity. He read me very well. He knew how I could be coached or if a message had to get across to the team he could yell at me. I’d be fine. I was someone who could take that. There is nothing bad I could say about the guy. The open door policy he had at school or if we ever needed anything from him any other time of the year we could get it from him.”

This year’s induction of the Class of 2024 Frazee-Vergas Athletic Hall of Fame will be held Saturday, Oct. 5