Reggi Spotts and the Number 22

Reggi Spotts did not pick the number. Going into her sophomore season at North Iowa Area Community College, she asked for No. 10. Somewhere between the order form and the equipment room, the sizes got mixed up, and she was handed No. 22 instead. “I was just like, OK, whatever, I don’t mind 22,” she says.

She did not know yet that 22 was the number Jenny Buls-Vrba wore when she ran the point for NIACC. She did not know that Jenny’s favorite team was Iowa State. And she could not have known that, a season later, she would be an NJCAA Division II first-team All-American, the ICCAC Player of the Year, and a Cyclone, still wearing 22.

A driveway hoop with no net

Spotts’ first basketball memory comes from a family gathering at her grandmother’s house in third grade. Her two older brothers and her cousins went outside to play on an old, rusted hoop that did not even have a net. “I was a lot smaller and I was a girl, but they definitely did not go easy on me,” she says. “I probably got every one of my shots blocked, but I never gave up.”

She joined a travel team soon after. By eighth grade she knew she wanted to play in college, and the reason was sitting in the stands at Mason City High School games. “There was just so many girls who went to Mason City that I looked up to who played at the next level,” she says. “But specifically the Meyer girls. I saw their dreams come a reality, and I saw that it is possible.”

Why the path ran through NIACC

At Mason City High School, Spotts was a three-time all-conference pick in basketball and soccer, scored in double figures all four seasons, and also played softball, ran cross country and played rugby as a senior. That was the problem. “Even though basketball was my favorite sport, I just never had the time to just focus on basketball,” she says. “I wasn’t ready coming out of high school to go to the Division One level, for sure.”

NIACC, a few minutes from home in Mason City, gave her two years to do nothing but basketball. “It was a great opportunity that I’m so blessed NIACC gave me,” she says, “and it just helped me improve my game immensely.”

The trainer who changed everything

Asked who shaped her time at NIACC, Spotts lists several people: Rachel McGuire, head coach Brad Vaught, Coach Taylor, Jeremy Winters. Then she names the one she believes mattered most, “and he probably doesn’t even know this.”

Mark Vrba is NIACC’s head athletic trainer. He was not assigned to women’s basketball. In 2024 he lost his wife, Jenny Buls-Vrba, a former NIACC point guard and later a Trojan assistant coach. “Even during his grief, Mark was looking out for me and investing in my future,” Spotts says. “He honored her memory with the first ever Jenny Buls Vrba ‘Never Back Down’ scholarship. And he awarded it to me.”

Then the pieces started connecting. The number she was handed by accident was Jenny’s number. Mark told her the way she played reminded him of the way Jenny played at NIACC. And he told her Jenny’s favorite team was Iowa State. “It was just like so many things coming together,” she says. “I was just so honored that he gave me this opportunity and that he’s continuing her legacy and carrying that purpose. It’s pushed me to work as hard as I have to reach the opportunity of playing here at Iowa State.”

The season that answered the question

Spotts’ biggest worry at NIACC was that nobody would notice. “In JUCO there are typically smaller crowds and very little exposure is what I thought,” she says. “With me wanting to play Division One basketball, I was scared that I wasn’t gonna be able to get where I wanted to go.” Her answer was a line she still repeats to herself: “What you do when no one’s watching defines who you are, and hard work always pays off.” She also credits her faith, and “all the work that my teammates and my coaches were all putting into me.”

As a sophomore in 2025-26 she averaged 18.8 points, 5.6 rebounds and 3.4 assists. Her 600 points were the seventh-most in the NJCAA. She was named ICCAC Player of the Year and ICCAC Female Athlete of the Year, the first NIACC athlete to win that award since 2019-20. NIACC went 28-4, she was MVP of the Region II-B tournament, and at the NJCAA Division II national tournament she scored her 1,000th career point, made the all-tournament team and helped the Trojans reach the quarterfinals. Then came first-team All-American.

Coach Vaught put it simply when she signed with Iowa State: “Reggi is one of the best players to ever play at NIACC.”

“What you do when no one’s watching defines who you are.”— Reggi Spotts, NIACC women’s basketball, 2024–2026

The only sophomore captain

NIACC’s 2025-26 roster had three sophomores. Spotts was the only one in the starting lineup, alongside four freshmen, and for the first half of the season she was the team’s only captain, until freshman Machaela Trask joined her. With a small support staff, the standard had to come from the players. “So I learned how to speak up. I learned how to listen, but most importantly, I learned how to serve my teammates,” she says, “which my freshman year, I can say that I definitely did not do.”

The lesson underneath it came from Vaught: always show up, whether you feel like it or not. “Showing up just kind of shows your teammates who look up to you that you care,” she says, “and you’ll give everything you have to them.”

No gym of their own

NIACC did not give her multi-million-dollar facilities. The Trojans shared gym space and made do. Spotts calls it “the biggest blessing in disguise,” because “it really forces you to ask yourself how much do you really love the game.”

At Iowa State, where the team has its own facilities, trainers and academic support, the contrast keeps her hungry. “I don’t take a single thing for granted,” she says. The pace is different too. Her schedule is “literally like mapped down to the minute,” and every drill, practice and lift demands “your maximum 110% effort and energy.” She has carried the same leadership with her: “whether it’s being the loudest on the bench or playing my heart out on the court, or just being a reliable teammate. I’m building off of what NIACC helped me start.”

A community that plays through her

What Spotts values most about NIACC is the people who showed up for small-town JUCO games. “The NIACC fans, and the staff, the faculty, they really truly care about you both on and off the court, no matter how you perform,” she says. “You’re representing the entire community when you put that jersey on.”

She believes Cyclone fans are the same kind of community, and she is taking Mason City with her. “I feel like the NIACC fans and the NIACC community can kind of live through me in a way,” she says. “I hope to make everyone proud every time I put on that number 22 Cyclone jersey.”