Cory Knoll, a Frankenmuth High School football player, volunteered with his teammates to help football players from rival Millington High School clean up the property of 84-year-old Billy Lansford of Tuscola County’s Arbela Township on Thursday. A June 22 tornado damaged Lansford’s home and property. (Photo by John Cook)
By Tom Gilchrist
Staff Writer
ARBELA TWP. — There’s no love lost between players on the Frankenmuth and Millington football teams, but in the tornado-ravaged yard of 84-year-old Billy Lansford on Thursday morning, goodwill found a home.
Forty-five Frankenmuth High School football players and coaches traveled to Lansford’s modest house along Birch Run Road in Tuscola County’s Arbela Township, a community that bore the brunt of the damage in a June 22 tornado in Saginaw and Tuscola counties.
The Frankenmuth volunteers joined 30 Millington High football players and coaches to haul chunks of logs and brush to remove downed trees from Lansford’s yard — the kind of work Millington football players and coaches have done for nine days at eight different homes.
“It’s very thoughtful,” said Caleb Wascher, 17, a Millington quarterback, of the Frankenmuth players who chose to help their archrival for the day.
“It’s more important than rivalry or football to come together and help someone else out,” Wascher added. “It’s nice to put football and rivalry aside for something more important.”
Annually, it seems, Frankenmuth and Millington engage in heated combat on a football field, where their talented teams often compete for the same league championship or for playoff survival, not to mention bragging rights between neighbors.
Blue-collar Millington is 13 miles from more famous Frankenmuth, one of Michigan’s top tourist attractions. But the distance between the two towns seemed to shrink when the Frankenmuth players joined the Millington players at Lansford’s home, according to Misty Lansford, Billy Lansford’s granddaughter.
“After they arrived, they all shook hands,” Misty Lansford said. “I heard comments like ‘It’s nice to see you off the field,’ and ‘I can’t wait to play.’ The Millington kids went over and thanked the Frankenmuth kids for coming, and the Frankenmuth kids jumped right to work.
“I was overwhelmed to have both of these teams come together. It’s by far one of the most awesome things I’ve ever seen.”
Minutes later, Wascher and his Millington teammates, Eddie Meeks and Nick Eickhoff, rode in the bed of a Chevrolet pickup truck with Frankenmuth players Cory Knoll and Travis Walker, as the five youths helped load wood on a trailer and haul it to a burn pit.
Arbela Township officials estimate the tornado destroyed or damaged 31 homes and 28 outbuildings in the township, causing $1.6 million in damage to those structures. The estimate, however, doesn’t include damage to the buildings’ contents or to remove trees that were uprooted or snapped off by the twister.
Billy Lansford, his granddaughter Misty said, could use the help. On Wednesday, he was taken by ambulance to the hospital, where his wife, Elizabeth, stayed with him Thursday as the two football teams labored on the Lansford family’s land.
“Not any average person could physically do this work,” Misty Lansford said, as chain saws whined and log chunks repeatedly thudded with a boom in the beds of Chevy trucks.
“Without the support of these football players — of these types of kids — this wouldn’t take place like this,” Lansford added.
Lenny Dantinne, a Millington assistant football coach who has helped coordinate cleanup efforts at Arbela Township homes following the tornado, said a television-station reporter suggested he ask players from Millington’s rival schools to help Millington players in the storm-recovery project.
The idea seemed to make sense when Dantinne considered the Millington and Frankenmuth football coaching staffs maintain a friendly relationship. So Dantinne called Frankenmuth head football coach Phil Martin.
“I reached out to Phil the other day,” Dantinne said. “I said ‘These (Millington) kids have been here for nine days. They’re slowly dwindling. I need your help.’”
Martin said Frankenmuth players didn’t hesitate to provide reinforcements.
“Lenny gave me a call to see if we could help for a day, and I asked the boys, and they were all about it,” Martin said. “This is a shot in the arm for (the Millington players). Give ‘em a little boost. Their kids have been out here helping for eight days. That’s commendable.”
The Millington and Frankenmuth football coaching staffs “get along pretty well,” Martin said.
“Everybody thinks we hate each other so much — well, the towns kind of do — but Phil Martin and I are actually pretty good friends,” Dantinne added.
Twenty yards away, Frankenmuth High football player Ryan Khan, 15, wielded an ax to cut chunks of logs. Not far from Khan, Millington assistant football coach Jason Germain cut a downed tree trunk with a chain saw.
“I live in Frankenmuth, actually, but up north, sometimes, we split wood,” Khan said. “I didn’t realize the damage was this bad out here, though I knew if was pretty bad.”
Knoll, 17, an offensive lineman on the Frankenmuth team, loaded chunks of a tree trunk for transport to the burn pit.
“If this happened to our town, I would really appreciate it if (Millington players) would come out and help us,” Knoll said. “I would appreciate it if anyone came out and helped us.”
Knoll likened the Millington-Frankenmuth football rivalry to an annual scrap between siblings.
“It’s really fun to play football especially if you have a good team, and I think that’s what we have and what they have,” Knoll said. “I like to think of it as two brothers going against each other and always trying to come out on top.”
Both teams were winners Thursday, clad in summer T-shirts rather than football jerseys, and helping speed the cleanup process at one of the many properties damaged by the twister.
“It’s really just friends helping friends at this point,” Martin said. “When I started looking around, I couldn’t tell who a Millington kid is, and I couldn’t tell who a Frankenmuth kid is.”