FRANKLIN — Alexis Rack learned about toughness in her driveway.

The Rack family home on 9th Street in Franklin was the neighborhood spot for pickup basketball games. During summers and school breaks, it wasn’t uncommon for 20 to 30 kids, including Alexis’ older brother, Willdric, to flock to the front yard to play basketball.

The only girl that played in these games was Rack — at the age of 6. 

“I grew up with two older brothers and I was the only the girl so I had no choice but to play sports,” Alexis said. “I had to play sports to survive. To be the only girl and not wanting to sit inside all day and read with my mom I had to go outside and play basketball.”

Rack may have been the lone girl — and smaller than most — but that didn’t mean the guys took it easy on her, especially her own brother.

“There would be times that she would go up for a layup and we would push her down onto the grass and dirt,” Willdric said. “We were rough with her. Our dad told her if she wanted to play then she had to be tough and told us not to take easy on her so we didn’t. I mean I don’t think a lot of those girls she faced later on grew up playing as physical as she had to.” 

“It was hard out there for me,” Alexis said. “Willdric would push me into the fence. I would run inside the house and tell my mom and she would say, ‘You either go out there and take it and survive or you come inside and read with me.’ The choice I made every time was to stay outside.”

That choice all those years ago helped transform Rack into one of the state’s premier and championship-winning high school basketball players, then into a Mississippi State Bulldog Hall of Famer and SEC record holder, and now as Louisiana’s lone boy’s basketball coach who is a woman.

“I often think about how I played the game,” Alexis said. “I always played with a chip on my shoulder. Feeling like I always had something to prove. I never felt that I was the best player on the court. I always felt that I had to work harder. I still feel that way.”

A Legendary Lady Hornet

Even though Rack loved playing all sports, including football, she was a natural on the hardwood. Willdric, who is a mere year older, saw his younger sister’s natural ability early on and knew that he had only one real advantage on her — and one that wouldn’t last.

“I found myself having to play her rough,” Willdric said. “She was just that good. Being a little older and a little more physical I had to rough her up to win. That was the one advantage that I had. I couldn’t let my little sister beat me.”

Willdric may not have lost to his little sister but plenty of other boys in the neighborhood did, and when Rack entered Franklin Senior High School, her older brother retired their one-on-one games.

“She never beat me in one-on-one game,” Willdric said. “When she got to her sophomore year, though, I stopped playing her. I figured even if I was rough or tough with her that she could still beat me. I stopped playing her and I always had those bragging rights.”

“He couldn’t hurt me anymore,” Rack said with a laugh. “His thing is that I never beat him in a one-on-one game. He says I never will. He stopped playing me. Shooting games he would play me because he could take that loss but not one-on-one.”

Rack herself wouldn’t take many losses from that point forward.

Rack became a starter her freshman season, helping the Lady Hornets to the Class 3A state playoffs, and was a starter on the Pride of New Orleans 14-year-old AAU team the following summer, helping that team to a championship.

Rack’s toughness was there from the start.

“The most special thing that I saw about her was I think she was a freshman,” former FSHS assistant and head coach Ronnie Louis said. “It was during a game and she got elbowed in the mouth. You could see that blood was starting to come out of her mouth. I asked her is she was OK and she said ‘Coach, I got it’ and she wiped her mouth and went right back out there. From that point on I knew that she was a special talent meant for greatness.”

The next season Rack, and the Lady Hornets, achieved greatness as they avenged a playoff loss the previous year to Teurlings Catholic by defeating the Rebels, 69-57, in the 2004 Class 3A championship game at the SLU University Center in Hammond. Rack would also earn the first of three consecutive first-team all-state honors.

“She always had that competitive edge,” Louis said. “She always had that drive to not only make herself better but (make) the team better. She had true leadership skills. It all came down to winning for her.”

The championship game her sophomore season remains Rack’s most cherished memory as a Lady Hornet.

“The whole town of Franklin, and surrounding area, came down to watch the game,” Alexis said. “We looked in the stands and we saw old teammates, friends from the high schools, all of our teachers and all of our area in the stands. The whole community came together. That was a great experience.”

The next year Rack earned another AAU championship as a member of the Domino’s of New Orleans 15-year-old team, and then led Franklin to a 33-2 overall record and a second straight Class 3A title, defeating Carroll 58-52 in the finals.

“Expectations were set a little higher that season,” Alexis said. “There was a target on our back that season. We knew we had to show up for every game.”

Rack, who was the 3A All-State MVP, and the Hornets fell just short of a three-peat, losing 44-41 to Capitol and Tysheka Grimes, a future college roommate of Rack’s, in the 2006 championship game, but Rack still finished her career with yet another accolade as she was crowned Ms. Basketball for the state of Louisiana.

“It was humbling,” Alexis said. “I remember thinking that we go through all of this and lose the championship and then God blessed me with this honor. It was a honor to be named Ms. Basketball but I hated that we lost.”

The SEC and beyond

Rack had cemented her status as one of the state’s best basketball players and it was time for her to move on to the collegiate level. By the time signing day came her senior year, every team in the state had offered her a scholarship but it was the program that recruited her the most and the earliest that Rack chose.

“I was getting something from Mississippi State every day,” Alexis said. “They came to my house like four times. They were recruiting me the hardest and when I went to visit it felt right to me. You know, I am a small town girl so Starkville felt comfortable for me.”

Rack chose Mississippi State over Arkansas, Auburn and LSU.

“I had an assistant coach at that time that said, ‘Coach she has pep in her step, pride in her stride and dip in her hip,’” former longtime Mississippi State head coach Sharon Fanning-Otis said. “He said anyway ‘She is a winner.’ When you are trying to build a program like we were you have to sign winners and kids who understand what it is going to take.”

Rack, though, still needed to make the adjustment from playing Class 3A basketball in Louisiana to playing the likes of the Tennessee Lady Vols.

“It was rough early on,” said Alexis, whose first start was at Tennessee. “I always thought I worked hard. I thought that. I wasn’t fundamentally sound on the college level. I had to get that down.”

Rack was named to the All-SEC Freshman Team but, more importantly, she displayed an important trait for a program looking to lay a foundation for success.

“I remember her freshman year we were at Arkansas,” Fanning-Otis said. “The game was sort of back-and-forth and it was on the line down the stretch but she got the group together after a timeout. Her leadership at that point on how she got them together and made a definitive statement. She really took over the team at that point.”

Rack continued to develop and became one of the greatest Lady Bulldogs in program history. Rack earned All-SEC first-team honors twice, earned honorable mention All-America honors as a senior, finished as the program’s third leading career scorer (1,756 points) and still holds the school and conference record for career 3-point shots made (340).

“She didn’t have any fear now,” Fanning-Otis said. “She had ice in her veins when it came to taking a shot.”

For Rack, her biggest accomplishment was helping get the Lady Bulldogs to their first Sweet 16 appearance in 2010, her senior season when Mississippi State defeated Ohio State in the second round, the team that eliminated them the season before. 

“To beat Ohio State to get there was great,” said Alexis, who was inducted into the Mississippi State Hall of Fame in September. “To make history was amazing. That was a big accomplishment for our team and program.”

Rack was selected 29th overall in the 2010 WNBA Draft by the San Antonio Stars in the third round. With only an 11-player roster, and one spot open with 30 players trying out for that spot, Rack ultimately was cut by the Stars after the preseason.  

Rack decided to give professional basketball a shot and played overseas for three years with stops in Turkey, Poland and Germany.

“It was different,” Alexis said. “My first season in Turkey was different. Practice was more of a competition than team building. It was like six or seven American and six Turkish girls that weren’t being paid as much as the Americans. The head coach didn’t know how to speak English so the coach depended on the Turkish girls to translate to us. So it was challenging.”

The grind of playing professional basketball had become tiresome as Rack’s daily life was nothing more than ice baths, stretching, practice, then repeating the process. 

Rack wanted to come back home.

“I felt like I missed so much of home,” Alexis said. “I didn’t want to be away from family so I moved back to Franklin.”

Forever a Hornet

Rack returned to her hometown of less than 8,000 residents and her old coach reached out to her about teaching at B. Edward Boudreaux Middle School. So Rack, who got her bachelor’s degree in chemistry, passed her state testing and began teaching physical science. Her mother Pearl was a longtime teacher at FSHS.

“I always thought it was great that she decided to come back home,” Willdric Rack said. “Franklin is a small town. They have had a couple of people that played in the pros like the NFL. But most people that make it to that level, they don’t come back home.”

It wasn’t long until Rack was serving as an assistant coach for the middle school basketball teams. Then a little more than four years ago, Rack was approached about taking over as the head boys’ basketball coach at the high school where her number 20 jersey is retired.

The former star player who had no desire to coach suddenly found herself compelled to take over a high school program.

“I can’t tell you how many players swear off coaching,” Fanning-Otis said. “Everybody ask a player if they are going to coach some day. Alexis was always a teacher or a coach on the floor. So she’s been coaching a long time and she just understands what it takes. Whether it was coaching the boys or the girls she was going to be a good teacher or a coach if she chose to do that.”

For Rack, there was no hesitation about coaching teenage boys. All of those days spent getting bruised and pushed around by her older brother had prepared her for coaching boys.

“The tone was set when I got here,” Alexis said. “I think they were a little nervous and a little excited but they hadn’t seen me play. I had a college mindset when I first took over.”

“She is the ultimate competitor,” Hornets senior Braydon Ward said. “I have never met a woman that competes like her or for that matter a man that competes like her. She has a different mindset than anyone else.”

Rack made sure to set the right tone her first day as head coach of the Hornets.

“I wanted them to play defense and to stop the ball on offense — and I was the ball on offense so they had to stop me,” Alexis said. “Boys talk so much noise out there on the court. They didn’t know my background and that I talked trash and I backed it up.”

Ward remembers how quiet it got in the gym that day.

“There was a couple of kids that wanted to challenge her but after that first time they didn’t anymore,” Ward said. “It got quiet quick.”

Under Rack’s leadership Franklin has made steady improvements the past three seasons, including earning a playoff berth last season for the first time in years. This year’s team is 7-6 overall and opens District 7-2A play Jan. 2 at West St. Mary.

“We love Coach Rack,” Ward said. “She is a very stern coach. She is not going too easy on us. She is not going to let up. She expects nothing but the best. She expects us to be better than what we are. The only thing we can do is listen.

“Now when they are out there talking mess they will say, ‘This is my court but I ain’t talking about Coach Rack. When Coach is off the court this is my court.’ “

BY THE NUMBERS

2006: The year Alexis Rack was named Miss Basketball for Louisiana.

340: The number of 3-pointers Rack made in her four-year career at Mississippi State, which is a school and SEC record.

48: Number of career-high points she made at Mississippi State in an 84-55 win over Maryland in 2009.

2: Number of Class 3A state championships Rack helped Franklin High School win as a player. The Lady Hornets won back-to-back titles in 2004-05.