On Memorial Day an EF4 tornado with winds up to 170 mph hit Trotwood, leaving 500 homes damaged and 59 completely destroyed. While no lives were lost, hundreds were uprooted.
The Westbrooke Village neighborhood where 15-year-old Hezekiah and 14-year-old Jeremiah live was devastated by the tornado. One nearby apartment complex has been condemned and another is in similar shape.
Much of their street — Waywind Drive — still looks like a war zone.
The house that was next door is gone, bulldozed into an empty dirt lot. The house across the street has been condemned, too, and awaits the bulldozers.
A home a few doors down is without its roof. The place next to it is missing most of its upstairs, the brick chimney now towering over a few exposed dressers and a lone wall still standing.
There’s a big pile of tree limbs and branches on the curb across from their house. A large, green Big Daddy dumpster sets in front of one damaged house. Several homes are draped with blue tarps and some have plywood nailed over the broken windows.
Their home is missing the patio. Jeremiah’s bedroom was completely blown apart. The living room was damaged. The roof was pulled up and then fell back down is now partly covered by tarps. The repair workers aren’t scheduled to arrive until another few weeks.
And yet none of this has been the most gut-wrenching thing the boys have gone through over the past three months.
Their dad – dealing with kidney failure and on dialysis for 11 years – was in dire need of a new kidney. He’s been battling focal segmental glomerulosclerosis (FSGS), a heredity disease that he said helped shorten his dad’s life.
“I remember when we were little, there were some days where he got sick and we were scared,” Jeremiah said after practice Wednesday.
Hezekiah said their dad had been their athletic hero: “He played football, boxed, rassled, swam, played basketball, just did it all.”
For several years he was their youth football and basketball coach, but recently his declining health prevented that.
He had been on transplant waiting lists in Dayton and Columbus to no avail, but finally – on Aug. 9 – he got a kidney at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center.
Eric said he’s now recovering “one day at a time,” but added that he, his wife and doctor decided against him going to the Rams’ opener.
“If I was to go, I’d have to wear a mask and gloves and I don’t know know comfortable I’d be,” he said.
As much as they want him there, his boys worry about the risks.
“There’d be too much of a chance he could get sick from something there,” Jeremiah said.
But Eric believes the game like the whole season, will be just the tonic his sons and the rest of the community needs right now.
Football at Trotwood Madison has long been the community’s rallying point. The Rams advanced to the Division III state semifinals eight straight times between 2010 and 2017 and won the state crown twice.
Like basketball – which won the state D-II crown last March – it is a source of communal pride and now it also provides an “escape” Eric said:
“It will give everyone a chance to come together and laugh and cheer and share all the other emotions that come with a game. And at the same time everything else in people’s lives is blocked out for a little while.”
And dealing with the ravages of the storm is just part of it. There’s been everything from the declining enrollment at the school because of the storm – some 40 kids went out for football this year compared to the usual 50 or 60 said head coach, Jeff Graham – to the announcement this week that Foodtown, Trotwood’s only grocery, is closing.
“All that goes out the window when we go out on the football field,” said Jeremiah, who plays multiple positions on offense and defense.
Graham said it’s the same for daily practices: “It’s a two-hour span where they leave everything else behind. Of course reality is always waiting, but to have that come in the course of the day – to be able to do something you love – is why football is special here.
“That’s why we call it our sanctuary.”
‘Like two locomotives’
Eric said Jeremiah saved the family the night the tornado hit:
“He was still awake and heard the alert on his phone and then he heard the neighborhood tornado alarm. We were all asleep and he did a great job waking us up. He was the brains behind getting us downstairs. He didn’t panic, so we didn’t panic.
“In very proud of him. He’s the youngest in the family and he really stepped up.”
Eric – who sleeps with a CPAP machine – admitted he lingered in bed for a while:
“By the time I was getting my sippers on, I could hear the tornado in the backyard and then the second floor windows started busting out and I could feel the roof coming off.
“The whole house was shaking by the time I got to the basement. It was a full-blown tornado. It was surreal. It sounded like two locomotives were coming full speed through the backyard.”
He said the roof raised up enough that (the wind) wreaked havoc inside.
“We had our grandma and grandpa’s pictures up and they were destroyed,” Jeremiah said quietly. “It was pretty heartbreaking.”
By the next day both boys were volunteering around Trotwood.
Hezekiah joined a couple of dozen of his teammates, Graham and offensive coordinator Kerry Ivy and they cleared brush and debris from several streets, including Waywind Drive.
Former Rams player, Bam Bradley, who later played for the Baltimore Ravens, joined them and bought chainsaws to help.
Jeremiah went with his older sister, Alexandria, to other neighborhoods to hand out water and assist people.
“Our kids worked six, seven days straight, 13 hours a day,” said Ivy. “This is their community.”
The homes of several players were impacted by the storm.
Rams athletics director Frank Russo told the Dayton Daily News' Marc Pendleton that 360 students from grades K through 12 were displaced by the tornado.
‘We’re still gonna get a ring’
“One thing after another keeps happening,” Ivy said. “Now Foodtown is going out, but everybody here keeps trying to fight back and persevere.”
Hezekiah – who Ivy described as a “special talent” at running back – said even though the Rams have fewer players this year, he believes they still will succeed: “It’s about tradition here. We’re dedicated to being the best we can be,”
Jeremiah said for he and his brother, that goes to the classroom, too: “Our parents let us know we’re students first and we should be getting As and Bs.”
The brothers’ grandfather is a pastor and they said say they grew up performing in the church.
“I play the piano,” Hezekiah said.
Jeremiah said he spares everyone: “I try not to sing.”
The brothers credit their parents with instilling prime lessons in their lives.
“Our mom taught us hard work and love,” Jeremiah said.
“And our dad taught us about staying strong and never giving up,” Hezekiah added.
As for football, he said he and his brother are learning about “character and being a man. We get a lot from football.”
And come the end of the season, he said he plans on getting one more thing:
“Everything else in our community may have changed, but not on the football field. We’re still gonna get a ring.”
Trotwood Madison football provides sanctuary … and some bling, too.
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