FRANKFORT — One cannot tell the story of Frankfort’s magical state championship football teams of 1990 and 1991 without talking about the teams that came before and the legacy that carried on after those championships.
Prior to 1990, Frankfort had a rich football history, one that players on that first state championship team credit for giving them the foundation for what they were able to accomplish. So, technically, this story could start all the way back at the beginning, but the first team that really stood out as a defining contributor to the state championship teams was the 1988 team.
The Panthers won their first 12 games that 1988 season to reach the state championship game. Though they lost that game 42-7 to Schoolcraft, it gave the teams that followed them a goal for which to strive.
“That was the first time that it became a possibility. Obviously, that game did not go very well, but they did make it, and we saw that it was possible to go down and play in the Silverdome,” said Kyle Klein, who played on both state championship teams as well as the 1992 state runner-up team. “That group proved that it was possible, that our little town could play with the best in the state.”
The example set by the 1988 team was one thing, but winning a state championship also would require a special group of athletes with a special bond, and over the course of the 1980’s that group was quietly assembling in backyards, and later the football field as junior high and JV players.
“We didn’t have Pop Warner back then, so we would all get together and play in each other’s backyards,” said Josh Mills, a captain on the 1990 team. “Our mission started when we were kids, and then when we got to junior high, we went undefeated and started to come together.”
Frankfort entered the 1989 season with a potentially great team, but there was one weakness. They were a young team and still had one more lesson to learn.
The regular season went well, aside from an early loss to Glen Lake, but while the team had the talent to reach the state championship that year, the Panthers left room for bad luck to derail them.
That bad luck struck in a 7-6 loss to Glen Lake in the regional championship game.
“We were mad,” Kyle Klein said. “We beat them up and down the field, and they returned an interception 80 or 90 yards for their only score of the game and beat us 7-6.”
The loss may have stung, but it would serve as the spark for four straight state championship appearances.
“It was a very galvanizing event,” said Derek Klein, who quarterbacked the Panthers for both state championship teams. “Because of that frustration and anger from the Glen Lake game, we never lost another high school football game.”
Frankfort may have suffered an early exit in 1989, but with sophomores and juniors who had been the backbone of that team all coming back, the hype quickly started to build for 1990.
“I remember in August of 1990, I was at the Arby’s in Traverse City, and someone said that the rankings came out. There was a newspaper lying around, so we opened up the paper to see where we were,” said Andrew Johnson, a senior on the 1990 championship team. “We didn’t see us at first, and then we realized: ‘Wait, we’re No. 1! Holy crap!’ It was one of those things where we didn’t see that coming, even though we probably should have.”
Mills said that the 1990 team was loaded with talent.
“We had a great team. We knew going into that season that we were going to be good,” Mills said. “That young team from ’89 was getting older, and we added Kyle Klein and Nick Nugent to the mix, who were really good sophomores. We had such depth and talent that a lot of players didn’t have to play both ways, so we were extremely fresh on both sides of the ball.”
There were many special things about the 1990 state championship team, but one that stood out was that Frankfort had its greatest offense in school history, one that scored 571 points over the course of the 13-game season and laid waste to opponents.
The final piece to a special backfield that year came to Frankfort back in 1988, when John Schindler moved to Frankfort as a sophomore. Together with Derek Klein and fullback Jay Lamerson, they ran roughshod over the opposition behind a strong offensive line.
“We would just smash our opponent and drive them, just create big piles,” said Mills, who played left guard. “Our backs were fast and smart. Schindler was fast and shifty, and Jay was the downhill put his shoulder down to get an extra yard kind of guy … It was a blast.”
Mills added that it truly was an unselfish team.
“What was really cool was nobody cared who scored,” Mills said. “Nobody cared who touched the ball. Everybody knew their job, and the whole focus was achieving those goals every week. It allowed us to have a lot of good memories.”
Part of Frankfort’s success and team culture undoubtedly came from coach Tim Klein, for whom Mills had high praise.
“Coach Klein was an outstanding student of football. He always studied the game and prepared us extremely well,” Mills said. “He was coaching during an era when he was head and shoulders above the others just with his knowledge of football and ability to organize what we needed to do as a team to be prepared … Everybody respected him. That’s what he demanded from the team, and he organized us well and taught us how to win.”
Frankfort’s average margin of victory during the 1990 season was 39 points, thanks not only to the team’s unstoppable offense but also to a defense that many on that team argue was as good as the 1991 defense, though the 1991 defense holds the school record for the fewest points allowed in a season: 21.
“The ‘91 team has the better stats, but the places where we gave up the yards was when the senior leaders weren’t in there,” Johnson said. “People will say the ‘91 team was the better defense, but you don’t really know, because the 1990 team, we scored so many points that we weren’t in there for the later parts of the game.”
While the defense excelled at every level, the pass defense was something special. Kyle Klein said that if he recalls correctly, the defense finished with more interceptions than completions allowed.
Schindler added that he had as much or more fun with that secondary as he did on offense where he topped 1,900 yards for the season.
“Playing defensive back with Derek and Kyle, no one wanted to pass against us,” Schindler said. “We liked the other teams to pass, so we had an opportunity for an interception. That was really fun playing in the defensive backfield with those guys.”
Thanks to such dominance on both sides of the ball, Frankfort trounced Glen Lake 57-10 in a late-season revenge game and faced no serious competition outside of Marion, a 15-9 win, on the Panthers’ way to the state championship game.
The Marion game actually emerged as quite the rivalry game during this heyday of Frankfort football.
“Marion was clearly the best team that we played all year. We played them in the playoffs the year before, and it was a very good game,” Kyle Klein said. “We played them the second game of the (1990) season and beat them by a touchdown. That was the most memorable game of the year for me. They were clearly the best team that we played, and they ended up winning the state championship as well.”
He added that the Marion game, though a non-conference game was one that no one was willing to miss during this era, no matter the circumstances.
“The ‘91 year, Jay Lamerson actually broke his toes while lifting weights on the Tuesday or Wednesday of the Marion week. He dropped a 45-pound plate on his foot and broke three toes, but he was such a tough kid that there was nothing that was going to keep him from playing in that game,” Kyle Klein said. “If it was just a regular week, he probably would not have played, but there was nothing that would have kept him from playing against Marion.”
Frankfort’s first ever state championship win in 1990 came somewhat comfortably, 33-6 over Lawrence.
Afterward, Frankfort’s players called it a win not just for themselves but for their community and every player who had suited up before them.
“We were playing for others,” Johnson said. “We were playing for the people who came before us. We felt like there were other people who came before us and who were on teams that were just as good, and it just didn’t work out that they made it there … We were standing on the shoulders of giants and just took the last step.”
Derek Klein said that one of the biggest thrills of winning in 1990 and 1991 was seeing the excitement in the faces of those who had given so much to the community and football program over the years.
“I think my favorite memory was my senior year when we came back from the state championship and were in the gym,” he said. “The town was in the gym with us. Andy Micham was there and Sonny Nye and Butch Parsons, all those blue-collar guys who made Frankfort what it is. We didn’t change anything. We just kept going on down the path that those generations had laid the groundwork for.”
Frankfort graduated a number of great seniors after the 1990 season, but heading into 1991, the expectation had not changed. The Panthers were not planning on losing.
“It was an expectation, really, that you don’t lose football games,” Kyle Klein said. “My sophomore year started that expectation. We were going to play for and win a state championship. Especially that first year, anything short of that would have been a pretty big disappointment.”
Though the offense was slightly less potent, the Panthers still dominated their opponents in every game, shutting out their opponents in 11 of 13 games and outscoring the opposition 458-21 on the season.
Frankfort eventually capped its season by defeating St. Patrick 21-7 in the state championship game.
That victory might have gone down as Frankfort’s last state championship victory in football, but it was not the end of the story.
Frankfort’s teams in 1992 and 1993 may not have quite matched the talent of the 1990 and 1991 teams, but the confidence and pride the program gained those years could not easily fade, nor could the experience the younger players gained during those championship runs.
“It was kind of a self-perpetuating thing,” Kyle Klein said. “The sophomores got an extra month of practicing against good players. By the time they became juniors, they were that much better to be able to contribute to the varsity team. By the time they were seniors, they had an extra eight weeks of practice in. They were that much better as seniors because of it.”
“I don’t think the (1992 and 1993) teams were as good (as the state championship teams), but they were still very good,” Klein said. “And they still wanted to prove to everybody and themselves that it was still Frankfort football and they were still the team to beat, even if the names were different.”
Frankfort’s magical run of appearing in five of six state championship games finally came to a close in 1994 when the Panthers went 3-5, their first losing season since 1979, but the legacy of those teams lives on even today, both through the standards they set and the many players from those teams who went on to serve as coaches.
One such player turned coach is Mills, who saw what being on those teams did for him in life and wants nothing more than to give that to the next generation.
“Football teaches so many life skills, and there is no question that the experience we had allowed us to be better people as we grew up,” Mills said. “That’s the reason I coach today. I want these kids to experience what I experienced, to not only have fun on the football but getting beyond that and taking advantage of the skills and experience learned in football to translate into our everyday world”
“The memories of playing football and being with those guys and our coaches are some of the strongest memories that I have,” he continued. “I wish that everybody could experience what we were able to experience.”
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How Frankfort's state championships leave a lasting legacy - Manistee News Advocate
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