Part 2: Joel Sambursky talks life after football and McAndrew memories

CARBONDALE, Ill. — In today’s part-two series on the story of quarterback Joel Sambursky (2001-05), he 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 McAndrew memories. Finally, he answers the question of how he feels about his passing records being broken.

SD: How did you meet your wife, Samantha?

JS: I met her in the weight room, and me not being very impressive in the weight room, I decided that's not the time to make the move. We just bumped into each other later that night at Pinch Penny Pub and I had a conversation with her and that's how our relationship started. I always thought it was super cool that she was a golfer, because the amount of discipline and work ethic and drive, and the mental component of that game is significant. My buddies, even to this day, ask how it feels to have a wife that can play golf better than you? And I’m like, she's better than you, too.

SD: After graduation, how did you wind up setting up shop Carbondale?

JS: John Dosier, who's the president of First Southern Bank, was looking for an executive director of the Chamber of Commerce. I was so beaten up after playing 49-straight games, the idea of torturing my body any further in hopes of a professional career was just not possible. I had majored in finance, and at the time I was getting my master's in business administration, and so I think I was the youngest director of the Chamber of Commerce in its history. It was a tremendous opportunity to meet a lot of business owners that may have seen me play or I’d kind of known. In terms of kind of setting up shop, it felt like a really good place to be.

It was probably one of the best decisions that I've ever made. After fulfilling the term as the director, I started at a local financial advisor’s office, and that was in 2007. If you study markets, you know that ’07 and ’08 was the Great Financial Crisis, at least at the beginning of it, the worst recession since the Great Depression. It felt very similar to being a Saluki football player in 2001. Did I do the right thing? But that's why I love sports. There's just so many phenomenal life lessons that you can get in sport that's going to translate to later in life. I was able to build a client base, and then after five years, decided to start my own practice, and that's what I own today.

Teddy Sambursky

SD: Tell us the amazing story of your son, Teddy Sambursky, and the community’s show of support for your family.

JS: His story deserves its own book. He's absolutely in every way, a miracle child. He shouldn't be walking around. He shouldn't be making mom and dad happy. He shouldn't be here today. And he woke up in my bed this morning and was waving to me, hi Dad, at eight years old.

So the incredibly Cliff Notes version of this is he had a heart arrhythmia. They decided to deliver him at seven months to treat his heart arrhythmia. They had to shock him a couple of times after they treated him to resuscitate him, and then he spent a month in the hospital in intensive care.

On his way back to Carbondale, we were there with signs, excited to welcome him home, and then they found out he had a bacterial infection. They had to life-fly him back to St. Louis, and he fought for two or three days to survive. Once he got through that, there were all sorts of complications, and he stayed in the hospital for four months.

At the 100 day mark, the Tough Like Teddy campaign was started by Connor James, a former Saluki football player. I didn't know anything about it. After a very long day in the hospital, I pulled up my social media and it had just blown up because Connor had shared a video and it was seen 30,000 times or something crazy. It was encouraging people to honor Teddy after being in the hospital for 100 days by doing 100 minutes of exercise.

The Saluki football team was posting videos of encouragement. Coach (Tom) Matukewicz at SEMO was posting videos. The awareness it created was just amazing. It felt like they were literally lifting us and putting us on their backs.

SD: Many of the same people are also your business clients. What do you enjoy most about running Liberty Wealth Management?

JS: Some of my favorite people on this planet are people that I've worked with now for 15-plus years as a financial advisor. I've lived life with them. They've been there for me when my kids were in the hospital, and I've been there for them when they've suffered tragedy. They are the reason why I get to live the life that I live today, have the flexibility to coach my kids’ sports, take care of kids when they're struggling, because I have just phenomenal clients that have been with me through great markets and bad markets, scary times and peace, and so on. Them trusting me means as much to me as anything.

Joel and Samantha have four children.

SD: You served a term on SIU’s Board of Trustees. Did you ever find out how close SIU was to shutting down the football program?

JS: One of my first meetings as a board member, I was just having small talk with one of the other members of the board who'd been there for a while. She said, oh, you played football at SIU? You know, I remember when we had conversations at the board about dropping the football program because we could no longer afford the liability of the stadium falling down.

So we had a crumbling stadium, and the University was either going to make a significant investment to fix that stadium or drop the program. Those conversations were happening right at the time Jerry Kill showed up. The winning that took place in 2001 to ’05 really did save the program. Jerry Kill and my teammates get the credit for that.

SD: Please share some memories of McAndrew.

JS: We used to say the cockroaches were as big as the defensive linemen. Starting out in 2001, the least of our concerns was the state of McAndrew Stadium. I still remember throwing that pass to Brandon Robinson. I remember a couple drunk students seeing me on the field, and they tried to carry me off the field, and they realized that I was too heavy for them.

My fifth year, I was working out in McAndrew Stadium with the rusty pipes and cockroaches. I said to Coach Kill, man, coach, you just got a big raise and an extension. My life has actually gotten worse, because we had to lift weights in McAndrew while they were building the Troutt-Wittmann Center at the time. It was a humbling experience. Just because you've been winning doesn’t mean you're getting all these nice, fancy things.

I remember all of those winter workouts where it was 5:15 in the morning and 18 degrees outside and the field is hard and icy, and Will Justice is puking, and coaches are screaming. So many memories were there. Obviously, I'm happy for Saluki Stadium, but it was hard to see, McAndrew be taken down.

SD: You never knew what was lurking in the belly of McAndrew. One summer there was a breakout of staph.

JS: It's amazing that there hasn't been lawsuits on that. Not that I'm encouraging that, and I'm hoping that the statutes of limitations have been exceeded. I mean, the conditions that we worked out in as Division I college football players was unbelievable, as a program that had become one of the top programs in the country. Maybe to some degree it humbled us enough to let us keep working.

SD: One last question. You set all the passing records at SIU, but now we're in a new era after COVID, and players can play five, six years, and some of those records fall. Does it ever bug you?

JS: When I left SIU, I knew that I had a lot of records. It wasn't something that I dwelled on. I didn't want to be a guy that's watching my game film trying to relive the glory days.

So the hardest part for me was not getting my records broken, but it was having to respond to people, asking about the controversy of my records being broken during the COVID era. And my response was, I don't know what records I still have.

I threw the ball about 20 times a game. If you would have asked me in ’05, would your record stand for 20 years? I'd tell you there's no chance, because of evolving offenses.

The records that matter the most to me is, how many games did you win? How did your teammates view you? My teammates voted me as the Toughest Saluki four years in a row. Those plaques are still on the wall.