GRAND FORKS, N.D. - During the 1980-81 season, North Dakota alumna Sue Tappe-Volkmann, a 5-6 guard, captained the Fighting Sioux women's basketball team. Fast-forward 30 years later and she now sits at the helm of her very own team - the Wadena-Deer Creek High School girls volleyball team - back in her hometown of Wadena, Minn.

How did she go from a basketball player to a highly successful volleyball coach? In a nutshell, by accident.

After graduating from UND in 1983 with a degree in health and physical education, Volkmann landed her first teaching job and, to her surprise, a gig as the head volleyball coach as well.

"Like most students coming out of college, when you are offered a job, you take it," Volkmann said. "I was offered my first job over the phone and I took it. When I went to sign my contract, they said, 'Oh, by the way, you're going to be the volleyball coach.' So, I took the job and I took what came with it and that's how I got into volleyball."

In 1992, Volkmann returned to Wadena and began to lay the groundwork for a successful volleyball program. Her hard work definitely paid off as the 2010 squad finished with the best season in school history.

"This was definitely the best team and the team with the most talent," Volkmann said. "We've been to state the two previous seasons and were the consolation champions two years ago. We had everyone coming back last season, so we knew that we were going to have a good team."

Volkmann was named the 2011 Class AA State Volleyball Coach of the Year by the Minnesota Volleyball Coaches Association and the Section 8AA Coach of the Year after guiding the Lady Wolverines to a perfect 33-0 record and a state championship. Wadena-Deer Creek nearly went unblemished, winning all but two sets the entire season.

But last season wasn't all trophies and applause. On June 17, 2010, an F4 tornado ravaged through Wadena, flattening Volkmann's farm near Bluffton (west of Wadena) and leveling the high school. Luckily, Volkmann and her team were playing in Bemidji that day, but they weren't completely out of harm's way.

Minutes after hearing the news about the town and Volkmann's farm, sirens in Bemidji sounded, sending players, coaches, and fans to into the lockerrooms with no cell service and no idea what would greet them once the winds died down.

After making it back to Wadena safely, Volkmann and her team saw firsthand what the words "everything is gone" really means.

"It is hard to imagine when someone says, 'Everything is gone.'" Volkmann said. "We don't normally have that severe of a tornado up here, so you don't really realize the type of destruction that can cause. When we got back and saw what 'gone' was, we pretty much dropped everything. Our farm was in bits and pieces scattered all over. All of our buildings - the barn, the shop, the shed, the hay shed, the house - were gone. We just dug a hole and burned and buried everything. After that, it was pretty much a flat piece of land. "

Gone were also the high school and the gym where the team used to practice.

"The high school was destroyed," Volkmann said. "Luckily, there was an elementary school a couple of blocks away that had very little damage and had a pretty decent gym as it was the high school gym at one time. It just need to be upgraded and fixed up a little bit. They did a really good job of getting it ready quickly."

Some would speculate that the devastation of the tornado brought the team together and was a factor in their success, but Volkmann disagrees. She attributes her team's success to team chemistry.

"I don't think the tornado was a factor in our success. Our number one thing was chemistry. We didn't have any superstars, but rather we had a team that had been together for a number of years. They have played together since they were very young, so that had built some great team chemistry.

"I think what the tornado did moreso was serve as a rallying point for the town. Everyone knew we had a good team, so they came out to watch. It was kind of a distraction from all that was going on and many people jumped on the bandwagon. It made for a really fun season."

The Wadena-Deer Creek High School has since been completely torn apart and construction on a new building began early last month. The school is projected to reopen in the fall of 2012.

- Go Sioux -