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Lending some hands for 'Family'
March 30, 2012
Adrian senior Zach Sarrault had never seen, on the ground in front of him, the damage caused by a tornado.
Living only 40 miles from where a storm had torn through Dexter on March 15, he was close enough to get an idea of what had ripped through the home of one of the Maples’ Southeastern Conference rivals.
And that distance was little more than an afterthought in deciding to help out a member of the “track family.”
The tornado that day was driven by wins of up to 140 miles per hour, according to the National Weather Service, and media reports said the storm damaged 100 homes and destroyed 10. One of those belonged to Dexter girls cross country coaches Katie and Bob Jazwinski – who with their children survived the storm in a bedroom closet.
“We knew we needed to go up there and help,” Sarrault said.
“I was really shocked by what it did. To see the roofs and blown-off siding. And the Dexter coaches’ house wasn’t even there anymore.”
Adrian coach Leo Lauver, his assistant coach and assistant coach’s wife and 21 members of their team – basically all who weren’t part of the school’s band and orchestra concerts that day – loaded into a bus and spent most of the daylight hours March 24 helping not only the Jazwinskis, but their neighbors as well.
A number of schools and teams have been represented in the Dexter clean-up efforts. Jazwinski said he’s seen athletes and coaches from Ann Arbor Pioneer, Pinckney, Chelsea, Ann Arbor Skyline, Whitmore Lake and the USA junior hockey team also based in Ann Arbor.
All have been appreciated. And most of that group had some kind of previous relationship with Dexter, or the Jazwinskis in particular.
But they’d known Adrian’s track people mostly through competition, and that was about it.
“My wife and I thought we were out of tears, but once we saw the Adrian bus pull up to our demolished house, we had tears flowing again, this time tears of joy and happiness,” the Jazwinskis wrote in a letter to Adrian superintendent Chris Timmis. “They have touched our lives for eternity.”
Lauver described the work as “cut down, cut down, cut down. Move, move, move.” Bob Jazwinski said his neighborhood isn’t one where people buy in as much for the houses as for the landscape – which included a number of mature trees including century-old oaks and 50-foot tall pines.
The tornado cleared many of those like it was building a golf course.
“It was a no-brainer,” said Lauver, in his 28th season coaching the Maples. “Adrian is a blue-collar town. It’s the right thing. You don’t think about it. You go help. That’s what we do here. … We’re a family, and Dexter is part of that family.”
Lauver first introduced the idea to his team the Monday after the storm. The athletes bought in immediately.
Thorns resulted in a few scratches, and the work was hard. But the Salvation Army donated gloves, and a local catering company was among those who fed the volunteers – who Bob Jazwinski had to order to eat because they were working so hard.
One of his neighbors, a Dexter cross country mom, had been in tears over all the debris scattered around her yard. The Maples cleaned up all of it, and now she calls Jazwinski just about daily to send along her thanks.
“They were very grateful. Everybody out there,” Sarrault said. “A Pioneer coach had a house there too, and I remember him telling us he’d never been so grateful to see an Adrian bus roll up.
“It really brought us together as a team, knowing we can help out other people. It will probably bring us into doing more volunteering.”
The family has received additional offers of help, including from the men’s gymnastics team from the University of Michigan – where Katie was a five-time All-American in cross country and track.
Bob Jazwinski said he and his family will move out of a hotel Wednesday. They’re working through preliminary steps at this point. But when it’s time to rebuild, Lauver – who has a background in landscaping – pledged the Maples for a return trip.
“The support of people who know us is pretty spectacular,” Bob Jazwinski said. “But to see a group of athletes from another team, that’s competitive (with us), drop everything, all the competitiveness is gone, and just want to help somebody, for us, is overwhelming.
“We’ll always be friends now, for sure.”
PHOTOS: (Top and Bottom) Adrian boys track and field athletes assist in clean of blown-down trees. (Inset) Bob and Katie Jazwinski's home was detroyed by the tornado that tore through their Dexter neighborhood March 15.(Middle) An Mlive.com report explained the damage and Jazwinskis' survival. (Photos courtesy of the Jazwinski family.)
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Freyhof, Otsego Celebrate Finals Wins
November 7, 2015
By Bill Khan
Special for Second Half
BROOKLYN — Erika Freyhof didn't say a whole lot when talking about herself, even on the day she won the MHSAA Lower Peninsula Division 2 cross country championship.
What really got her to light up and open up was when the topic shifted to her team.
Hamilton's girls, who had three straight top-four finishes from 2009-11, were back in the Finals after missing out the last three years. Ending an even longer drought — like forever — was the Hamilton boys, who had never qualified for the Finals.
Even the modest finishes by those teams — 17th for the boys, 19th for the girls — couldn't dampen Freyhof's enthusiasm on Saturday at Michigan International Speedway.
"Our team made it, which was awesome," Freyhof said. "We had only six girls at our Regional, because one of them is injured, and we made it as a team. That's amazing. And the boys made it, which is like the first time in school history. So our whole cross country team was so excited. It was awesome."
And what about her championship performance?
"I really wanted to just go out and win," she said.
Freyhof has moved up the Division 2 ranks during her three trips to MIS. She was 15th in 19:07.6 as a freshman in 2013 and seventh in 18:45.4 as a sophomore last year.
"All of the ones in front of me last year were seniors," Freyhof said. "That was exciting when they graduated, so I could get a chance."
Her only loss in 12 meets this season was a second-place finish to Division 1 champion Madison Troy of Grandville in the Otsego Bulldog Invitational on Oct. 3.
There was only one senior in the top 11 of this Final, so there will be plenty of runners looking to build on their experience at MIS to take a shot at Freyhof's title next year.
Finishing second was Holland Christian sophomore Kayla Windemuller in 18:22.5. Linden junior Alia Frederick was third in 18:30.6.
"Last year I became the fastest freshman at my school," said Windemuller, who was 47th last season. "I just wanted to keep on improving. I figured out I love running. I just wanted to keep pushing myself to see what I could do. I started running in Girls on the Run in sixth grade. I ran in seventh grade, but I hated it so much I didn't want to do it again. Then someone convinced me to do it my freshman year."
Otsego won its first team championship by a comfortable margin, scoring 97 points. East Grand Rapids was second with 180, while two-time defending champion Grand Rapids Christian was third with 199. Linden was fourth with 205.
Otsego has moved up in the top three the last three seasons, placing third in 2013 and second in 2014. The Bulldogs returned six of their seven runners from last year's finals squad, while adding freshman Sydney Kubiak, who was the team's No. 4 runner on Saturday.
Leading Otsego from near the front of the pack were juniors Megan Aalberts (fifth, 18:38.8) and Sophia Hirzel (sixth, 18:42.1). Also scoring for the Bulldogs were sophomore Maddie Marciniak (27th, 19:02.8), Kubiak (39th, 19:19.4) and sophomore Gracie VerHage (45th, 19:26.5).
The MHSAA Cross Country Finals are sponsored by the Michigan National Guard.
PHOTOS: (Top) Hamilton’s Erika Freyhof cruises the final stretch on the way to her first MHSAA individual title (Middle) Otsego’s Sophia Hirzel finishing sixth overall, just behind teammate Megan Aalberts, as they led the Bulldogs to their first MHSAA team championship. (Click for more from RunMichigan.com.)