Crim: Time doesn’t change Siebers’ approach to doing things all out, all the time

EDWARDSVILLE, Ill. — Mike Siebers brings the same exuberance to a weekend interview with an old sports writer as he did to high school basketball courts and soccer fields four decades ago while playing for Quincy Notre Dame.

All out, all the time.

“Sorry for taking so much of your time,” he said as the conversation reached the 100-minute mark, with another 41 minutes to go. “I’m in sales, if you haven’t figured that out.”

No apologies necessary. Trips down memory lane are supposed to be enjoyable, and Siebers — considered one of the best multi-sport athletes to play at QND, a school rich in athletic tradition — has plenty of memories.

As a senior, he helped the Raiders reach the single-class soccer state tournament for the first time in 1981. A sweeper back, he anchored a defense that held opponents scoreless for 43 consecutive quarters before losing to Collinsville 1-0 in overtime in the quarterfinals.

Despite playing defense, he still managed to score 15 goals and log three assists to earn both all-state and McDonald’s All-American honors.

That winter, Siebers averaged 18.5 points, 10.3 rebounds and 5.7 assists per game to help QND rise to as high as second in the Class A state rankings before finishing with a 25-5 record. He was named to both the Associated Press and Chicago Sun-Times all-state first teams.

He went to play basketball at Quincy University during the final four seasons of legendary coach Sherrill Hanks’ career, which included two appearances in the NAIA tournament.

Today, he’s senior vice president for sales and marketing for Peabody Energy, the largest private sector coal company in the world, based in St. Louis. He has spent nearly 35 years with the company and manages U.S. sales for the 106 million tons of coal it produces each year.

“Nothing sexy about it,” he said. “We get coal out of the ground, we sell it to utilities and they make cheap electricity.”

‘It’s all the other things that matter’

Siebers was the fourth of five boys born to the late Gene and Becky Siebers, and all were involved in athletics. While sports didn’t consume the household, there was obvious pride in their sons’ achievements.

“My dad built houses,” Siebers said. “Coming home after games, we very seldom talked about the game. We didn’t relive play-by-play. My parents knew the bottom line was that this is just high school sports. It’s all the other things that matter.

“Years later, I was talking with one of the guys who supplied my dad with materials. He told me, ‘Every time we had to go there, we had to plan on an extra half-hour because all your dad wanted to talk about was basketball. He had clippings in his truck and would pull them out. He was always bragging on you.’ ”

Steve was a starter on the Catholic Boys basketball team that lost to eventual champion Lawrenceville by a point in the quarterfinals in the inaugural Class A state tournament in 1972. Tony was a starter the following season and went on to play at Midwestern State University in Wichita Falls, Texas.

Ted played basketball until his sophomore year, then chose to focus on tennis and golf. Bill was part of two soccer teams that earned state tournament trophies, as well as the 1989 basketball team that reached the super-sectional round.

“Dad was a homebuilder,” Mike said, “and we were all exposed enough to know that we didn’t want to work like he did. School and sports always came first, but there was no laying around the house playing video games.

“I wasn’t playing varsity early in my sophomore year (at QND), so we didn’t have practice over Thanksgiving. My dad had me helping with a house that wasn’t under roof yet. It was miserably cold. I remember freezing my ass off working.

“The entire time I’m thinking, ‘If coach (Leigh) Conover had put me on varsity, I would be hanging out in Jacksonville instead of doing this.’ ”

Steve and Bill are partners in the Quincy law firm Scholz, Loos, Palmer, Siebers & Duesterhaus. Tony lives in Houston and is retired from a career as an accountant in the oil and drilling business. Ted has been successful in various Quincy businesses.

“Steve is 10 years older and helped me a lot in sports,” Mike said. “Ted’s a jack of all trades. He’s the smartest guy I know. He’s in a million different things. He will figure anything out.”

Mike jokes his success in the business world might come as a surprise to some.

“When I first went to Quincy Notre Dame, a lot of teachers looked at me like, ‘Are you sure your older brothers are Steve, Tony and Ted?’ ” he said. “Those guys practically walked on water there.

“I remember my mom getting on me in high school, as all parents do, trying to do their best to motivate without benchmarking kids. ‘You need to get better grades, Mike.’ I told her, ‘But mom, all my brothers were smart nerds. I may not be an A but I’m a solid B. Benchmark me to some of the kids in my class.’

“When I got an MBA later in life (from Washington University in St. Louis), a lot of people were shocked. I had people tell me, ‘You were not that smart, Siebers.’ ”

‘ I didn’t lose any sleep over it’

The 1981-82 QND basketball team was arguably the school’s best in the 1980s, winning its opening 12 games and 14 of its first 15. Mike Siebers and Dan McCaughey were a dynamic one-two punch complemented by a strong supporting cast.

The Raiders were ranked second in the state when they traveled to Monmouth to play the third-ranked Zippers on a snowy Saturday night in mid-January.

Despite having few of its own fans in the packed stands because of treacherous travel conditions, QND led by 14 points entering the fourth quarter. However, turnovers and missed three throws allowed Monmouth to tie it at the end of regulation and win in overtime.

Talking to reporters in the locker room after the game, Siebers, who scored 26 points and grabbed 18 rebounds, took full responsibility for the loss, citing three missed free throws on the front end of the bonus in the fourth quarter.

Those seemingly innocuous comments from the team’s co-captain appeared midway through a story in The Herald-Whig’s Sunday edition.

“If I make one of those free throws, the game doesn’t go overtime,” he said, looking back now. “It seemed like the easiest way to explain it at the time.

“I get to school on Monday and the principal pulls me out of home room first thing. Ron Davis was a counselor, and they took me to his office. There’s a bunch of people in there. They’re all asking me if I’m OK.

“I’m like, ‘What do you mean?’ They said, ‘The comments in the newspaper. It sounds like you’re taking all the blame. You’re being too hard on yourself, Mike.’ They thought I was depressed, like I’m on suicide watch or something.

“I try to tell them that’s not the case. The look on my face was like, ‘You really think I blame myself? Had I not been at the game do you think we would have won? I played the best three quarters of my life and then the wheels fell off.’ I didn’t lose any sleep over it.”

Siebers spurned basketball scholarship offers from Western Illinois and Eastern Illinois to play for Hanks and Quincy University, which transitioned from NAIA to NCAA Division II the year after he graduated.

“The best advice I got was to figure out what level you think you can play at and go down one,” he said. “A summer camp coach told me, ‘It’s four years, you’re not going pro and you need to get a degree. If you sit on the bench, you’re going to be miserable. Go down one level; those guys will love to have you.’

“Quincy was as competitive as Eastern and Western back then and the support was great. Not that we packed the place all the time, but we had 1,500 people there even when we were bad. Eastern and Western would struggle to get that many people there.”

And then there was the opportunity to play for Hanks, who finished his coaching career with 730 victories.

“Not to take anything away from other coaches I had, but coach Hanks not only prepared you physically, but he made you think strategically,” Siebers said. “He was a hard worker. He was all about preparation. There were days we would be in the gym for six hours.

“I felt fortunate to play for coach Hanks. He seemed like an old guy at the time, but he was my age now (57). And it was a good school and a good education. College is the last four years of your life where you can get away with a lot of fun without responsibilities.”

‘It’s been an interesting job’

Like each of his brothers, Mike earned an undergraduate accounting degree. He moved to St. Louis and spent one year working for the Department of Revenue before joining Peabody Energy.

After working for seven years in Evansville, Ind., he relocated to Edwardsville, where he lives with his wife, Luann. They have five sons, ranging in age from 18 to 36, and one grandchild.

As fate would have it, one of his neighbors is Trevor Trimpe, a sophomore guard on the 1982 Havana team that eliminated QND in the sectional championship game with Siebers hobbled by an ankle injury suffered earlier that week.

“Everybody knew Lawrenceville with Marty Simmons was the team to beat that year, but we felt like we could make it to state,” Siebers said. “Had I not blown the ankle, who knows?”

The coal industry is not as booming as it once was. Ten years ago, 50 percent of the country’s electricity was generated by coal; today, it’s between 20 and 30 percent. Siebers at one time had 45 people reporting to him; that number is now 10.

But he’s still attacking the job with the same energy that served him so well as an athlete.

All out, all the time.

“We’re still fighting,” Siebers said. “We want to haul the last ton of coal to be burned.

“It’s been an interesting job. I’d like to keep doing it until we get our youngest out of college. I mean, somebody has to do my job.”