Part 1: Joel Sambursky arrived at SIU at pivotal moment in program's history

CARBONDALE, Ill. — Joel Sambursky arrived at Southern Illinois in 2001 as one of the first recruits of the Jerry Kill era. It was perhaps the most pivotal union of head coach and quarterback in school history.

Saluki Football was at a crossroads — a program mired in losing, the object of ridicule, a crumbling stadium, and whispers that the program’s very existence was in question.

It’s no exaggeration to say the Kill-Sambursky pairing saved Saluki Football. Voted the Toughest Saluki by his teammates four years in a row, Sambursky was the driving force behind a turnaround that resulted in three playoff appearances, multiple conference championships, and a No. 1 national ranking.

In Part 1 of Sambursky’s story, the Liberty, Mo. native talks about playing hardball with Coach Kill during the recruiting process, the program’s stunning turnaround, and his relationship with the fiery head coach.

StrongDawgs: How did you wind up as a Saluki?

JS: I had committed to Northwest Missouri State, which at the time was a Division II powerhouse. If you were a quarterback in the Kansas City area and couldn’t go to a big-time conference, going to Northwest Missouri State was a big deal. And so they brought in three quarterbacks, all guys that I was aware of in the Kansas City area, and they offered us all. The coach said, the first two to commit, I'm taking. It seemed kind of cutthroat, but it was my first recruiting trip, and I just jumped on it.

That night, Matt Limegrover, who was the offensive coordinator at Emporia State, was literally standing on my deck as we were getting home. My dad was like, hey, I'm so sorry, he just committed to Northwest Missouri State. And Coach Limegrover says, we just took a job today at a Southern Illinois University. He had all of his Emporia gear on. He says, I have nothing to give you, but can we just get Joel to come out and take a visit? My dad wouldn't let him in the house.

Then Coach Kill kept calling. Finally, I called him back and said, Coach, here's the deal. I'll come and take a recruiting trip to SIU if you offer me a full ride scholarship, but I'm not stepping foot on that campus unless you offer me a full scholarship. That whole bit is just hilarious, because I would never talk to Coach Kill like that now. I think I benefited from the fact that he was brand new to Southern Illinois, so they're already behind in their recruiting process. He needed a quarterback, and he called me back and said, come on down.

And so that's what got me to Southern Illinois. I kind of played hardball with Coach Kill as a 17-year-old kid.

SD: What was your visit like?

JS: I remember getting a postcard and it had the campus lake photo on it. I remember thinking, wow, they got a lake on the campus. When we got there, it was a snowstorm. I didn't even see the locker room. We drove by the stadium on our way to dinner at Giant City Lodge.

I really got to know Coach Kill a little bit over that weekend and kind of fell in love with their approach. They told me I could go to Northwest Missouri, get plugged into a system, or I could go and do something pretty remarkable, which is be part of a team that turns around one of the worst football programs in the country. That really appealed to me.

SD: You redshirted in 2001, the team went 1-10, so obviously, the turnaround didn’t happen overnight? 

JS: It was one of the hardest things I've ever experienced. Every week you're sitting there thinking, what if you made a huge mistake? We would go around campus and professors would make jokes about how bad the football team was. Nobody wore Saluki football gear. Coach Kill even thought about pulling my redshirt.

But the guy that just believed the whole time was Coach Kill. The juniors and seniors were like, well, we've had coaches tell us that we're going to get this turned around before, and it doesn't happen. (Losing) is just what we do. They used to have a term for it — “Getting Saluki’d” used to mean we would find a way to lose a game at the end. It's in our DNA. And there's this crazy, baldheaded coach from Kansas that talked funny, and he was like, that ain't gonna happen. He had high standards and held everybody accountable and he believed in it, and he recruited good players. That sounds really easy to do, but it's really hard.

SD: As a redshirt freshman and starting QB in 2002, you only won four games, but everyone points to the Western Illinois game as the program’s turning point.

JS: Western was the conference powerhouse at that time, and we played them on Homecoming. That's really when the tide turned for us, because we beat a team that we hadn't beaten for 18 years, a top 10 team. We built a big lead, and then we just started to lose it at the end, and everybody was kind of looking around like, here we go again. But this time it was different, and we actually went and found a way to win a game at the end.

In the last two minutes of the game, there were literally hundreds of students leaving the tailgate lot, trying to climb the fence to see what was happening. I remember that final drive. I'm scanning the defense to see what the coverage is, and I can see students falling over the fence trying to get into the game. I’ll never forget that. We found a way to win. What's forgotten is the next week we beat Northern Iowa, and by a margin that was the worst defeat in their program's history.

By the end of the season, we were down to our fourth-string running back. We had a freshman quarterback, me, and I was definitely in the developmental stage, and then we were able to build off of that into the big 2003 season.

Sambursky answers questions after SIU's stunning comeback win over WIU.

SD: Talk about the 10-2 season in 2003, as well as the painful way it ended in the playoffs at Delaware.

JS: I didn't know we were going to be 10-2, but I knew that we had broken through the wall. I had no doubt in my mind that we were going to be a winning team. I did not think we'd go 10-2. When you go from a program that's expecting to find a way to lose, to expecting to find a way to win, that's the tipping point. When we walked on the field, we expected to win.

I have a 12-year-old son, and a couple months ago, we were driving to a baseball tournament with his teammate and they asked me if I’ve ever been knocked out playing football? I was like, yeah, I have. Actually, it was on national television on ESPN. It’s been more than 20 years since it happened and I have not looked at it, but sure enough, they found the entire game on YouTube and they are trying to find the moment when I get hit. When they found it they're like, no way, this is great!

And then I actually watched it. And now being a dad and having kids that have suffered pretty significant medical issues, it totally changed my perspective, because my parents were watching that game at a bar in Kansas City, and to see a child lay motionless on a football field for 10 minutes and then to be carted off, you know, is terrible.

In terms of the game, we weren't ready to play at that level, and frankly, we were cocky. Coach Kill included. We all were, and they beat us at every position across the board. They thumped us. They were a better program. We were a good program, but we still had room to grow.

SD: That set the stage for the 2004 season, which might have been one of Southern's best teams ever, just dominating opponents, undefeated in the league, ranked No. 1, but a bad matchup in the playoffs.

JS: We had so much talent, running backs Arkee Whitlock and Brandon Jacobs, and having the defense that we had, and me being more developed, more comfortable.

That Eastern Washington first round playoff loss is the hardest to take. We had a phenomenal defense, but the one area that we struggled is when you spread us out, dinked and dunked. Eastern was the best team in the country that did that. Then you factor in pretty miserable conditions that probably impacted us more. If you were to force me to look back, this is one of those things where, man, that's a national championship caliber-winning team that year, and we just couldn’t get it done that day.

SD: You finally break through with a playoff win your senior year in 2005, the program’s first playoff win 22 years.

JS: The thing I'm most proud of about my teammates and Coach Kill is we went in when the bar was nonexistent, no expectations of the program. Every year we were there, we just kept raising the bar. And so the first round win against Eastern Illinois, against a really good team in a wind tunnel up there. Then we played the best team in the country (Appalachian State) with probably the best quarterback, a team that wins the national championship.

SD: How would you describe your relationship with Coach Kill?

JS: I think that it just became, not in words, but in actions, a father-son relationship. He risked a lot to take a job at a university that nobody thought he could win. Then he risked a lot by investing in me, and I just never wanted to let him down. So when you’re working out or you're watching film, it was, how do I not disappoint this guy?

He told me when he had cancer, before he told anybody else. It was the week before our playoff game in ’05, and he called me into his office and he was starting to tear up. He said, hey, I just found out that I have cancer, and I know that you're religious, and I want you to pray for me because I need it. I mean, it went beyond football, including his struggle with epilepsy. And now I have a son that has epilepsy.

Coach Kill is one of the most loyal and remarkable people on the earth. He's got his faults, as we all do, but he's exactly what SIU needed at the time. There should be a statue of Paul Kowalczyk for seeing this guy in Kansas as exactly what SIU needed at that moment.

SD: Do you have a favorite Coach Kill story?

JS: I remember the first time I threw an interception in practice and I got the biggest butt-cheweing in my entire life. And then after practice, he ran over to me, or if you ever saw Coach Kill run, he waddled over to me. And he put his arm around me, and he goes, I love you, man. I just wanted to see if you could take that, and you took every bit of it. I'm like, “Thanks, Coach, 'cause that just shortened five years of my life.”

Part Two tomorrow: Sambursky reflects on meeting his wife at SIU, and nearly losing his son, Teddy Sambursky. He talks about opening a business in Carbondale, and looks back at some of his favorite McAndrew memories. Finally, he answer the question of how he feels about his records being broken.