Best of Bluff; Webber’s influence on Poplar Bluff Mules football strong 30 years later

There are arguably few people who have had more of an influence on high school football in Poplar Bluff the last few decades than the late Paul Webber.

Even though Webber coached the Mules for just three seasons (1989-91), the impact of those three seasons on the program still is strong even today.

Example: the 29 seasons since Webber stepped down to assume an administrative position at Poplar Bluff High School, the Mules head football coach has been either a member of Webber’s coaching tree (served on his coaching staff or on the coaching staff of a former coach) or one of Webber’s former players in 23 of those seasons.

Paul Webber is pictured with Coach Jim Brown during his days at Poplar Bluff High School.Photo provided

“Coach Webber was an exceptional football coach, but what I think made him so special was that he was a master motivator,” current Mules head coach David Sievers said. “He was able to get more out of his players and team than they probably had to give.

“His presence and personality were bigger than life. I remember sitting with Mike Huffman at the old Shoney’s restaurant and telling him that I thought this was the main reason why Coach Webber needed to come to Bluff.”

Sievers both played for Webber in the 1980s at Jackson High School in Cape Girardeau County, then served on Webber’s coaching staff after the latter made the move to Poplar Bluff later in the decade.

Paul Webber, who would later coach the Poplar Bluff Mules football team, is pictured during his years as a coach at Jackson High School.Photo provided

“I feel blessed to have been able to do both,” Sievers said. “I feel like I learned as much football as life from him. I always remember when I was coaching with him, how he would start in on one of his motivational stories, and I would whisper to the other coaches that I remember this one — it’s really good.”

Webber also was the leading architect of turning around Mules football in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

After a dominant stretch in the 1960s and much of the 1970s, the Mules were 27-74 in the 10 years prior to Webber’s arrival.

More than that, from 1985-88, Poplar Bluff won just two games — including going 0-10 in 1985 and 1987 — and lost 18 games in a row from Oct. 3, 1986, to Sept. 9, 1988.

Keith Webber played for his father at Jackson High School and was attending college in Texas when his father announced he was leaving Jackson to take the reins of the high school he played for in the early 1960s.

“Growing up in Jackson and being embedded with that program since the time I was born, I honestly didn’t like the thought of him leaving and going somewhere else — especially a competitor that had fallen on such hard times,” Keith Webber said. “We didn’t know what it was like to lose a game to Poplar Bluff.

“In talking with him about the decision and the difficulty I was having with it, I told him how much I loved Jackson, how it was the perfect hometown to grow up in and how our entire family had invested all the blood sweat and tears — and mostly heart and love there.”

However, Webber’s response changed his son’s outlook on the move.

“I’ll never forget his response as he used my own words against me,” Keith Webber said. “He said, ‘Son, the way you feel about Jackson — I get it. Imagine having all the success we’ve had and the tremendous support from the community. That’s what I grew up with and had in Poplar Bluff. They shouldn’t be in that condition, and it hurts me to see it. I share the pride you have in Jackson and nothing will ever replace it, but I don’t like seeing what’s happened to the program I grew up in at Poplar Bluff.’”

Keith Webber said the decision to move back to Poplar Bluff also was motivated by coach Webber’s desire to be closer to his parents, who lived in Butler County.

“There wasn’t a lot made publicly about it at the time, but the biggest driver in him returning to Bluff had to be his parents being nearby and the fact that they were getting to the age where they weren’t able to travel as freely,” Keith Webber said. “Same for my mom. I didn’t really get it at the time, but family was a huge motivator in the move.

“My brother and I were down in Texas and my sister just graduated from Jackson. Both sets of grandparents were in Poplar Bluff, as were some of my parents’ siblings, and both had told me many times how nice it was to be able to spend more time with them. That was a huge component behind the move I didn’t really consider.”

In addition to retaining Sievers and Rusty Wrinkle (who later succeeded coach Webber at the helm of the Mules in 1992) from the previous season’s coaching staff, coach Webber brought in Jim Brown as defensive coordinator and strength coach and Mark Barousse as offensive coordinator — two more moves that had lasting impacts on the program.

A proponent of bigger, faster, stronger, Brown was a leading figure in the Mules making a commitment to the weight room, which has continued to pay huge dividends — not only for the football program, but also for Poplar Bluff High School athletics as a whole. Brown also served as PBHS athletic director for many years.

Meanwhile, Barousse was fresh off a career as a wide receiver in both the CFL and USFL, including being a receiving target of Hall of Fame quarterback Jim Kelly with the USFL’s Houston Gamblers.

Barousse also was a disciple of Mouse Davis, the architect of the run-and-shoot offense, the forerunner of today’s spread offenses. Barousse helped Webber bring the run-and-shoot to Poplar Bluff in 1989, making the Mules one of the first schools in southeast Missouri — if not the first — to adopt a spread-style offense.

Keith Webber said his father had a penchant for choosing talented coaches for his staff, including one who became his successor at Jackson.

“I remember coach Carl Gross being at our house talking to my dad during the summer of what must’ve been 1983,” Keith Webber said. “[Gross] had been coaching at SEMO and had a great offensive mind. In my mind, hearing my dad so excited about him coming on, I’m thinking why would you bring this genius in — he sounds better than you.

“I even asked him that, and I’ll never forget [my dad] seeing the opportunity to teach another lesson. He told me he hopes he knows the least of anyone on his staff because they’ll make him a better coach — a rising tide lifts all boats. I’ve remembered that every time I’ve made a hire in my career, and it’s served me well.”

Barousse later went on to spend 12 seasons as the Mules’ head coach from 1997-2001 and 2011-17, including joining coach Webber and Jim Lohr — Paul Webber’s high school coach — in coaching Poplar Bluff to perfect regular-season records (Lohr in 1966, Webber in 1990 and Barousse in 2017).

“He absolutely loved seeing his former players and coaches succeed,” Keith Webber said. “I believe Kent Gibbs (current head coach at Cape Central) was his first former player who got into coaching.

“He played and wrestled for my dad at Jackson in the early years and has since been to the Show-Me-Bowl and coached all over the southeast Missouri — and was the athletic director during a great run at Jackson.”

The Mules improved to 3-7 in Webber’s first season at the helm in 1989, including snapping a five-year-long home losing streak on Oct. 27, 1989, with a 21-3 win over Sikeston and finishing as the Class 5A District 1 runner-up to a state-ranked Cape Central team.

The Mules’ improvements in 1989 laid the foundation for one of the most memorable seasons in school history the following year.

In 1990, the Mules finished the regular season 10-0 and made it to the state quarterfinals in Class 5A, finishing the season with a school-record 11 wins and their first perfect regular season since 1966.

“Coach Webber and his motivational strategies played a huge role in that turnaround,” Sievers said. “It also helped that we had an exceptional group of players that year. I have said hundreds of times that that team was probably not the most talented — although they were really good — but it was the best team I think I’ve coached.

“I always say that if you messed with one of them, you’d better be ready to mess with them all. It was probably the most close-knit team I’ve seen.”

Webber stepped down as head coach after the 1991 season to move into administration, first at PBHS and later at Hazelwood East High School before dying in the fall of 1998 at the age of 53.

“I believe he would’ve stayed in Poplar Bluff longer had his situation not changed so drastically,” Keith Webber said. “There were commitments made that changed rapidly with a new superintendent arriving.

“Still, I know the time they got to spend around their parents was a gift he nor my mom took for granted.”

Before taking the reins at Poplar Bluff, coach Webber was the head coach at Jackson for 20 seasons (1969-88). After winning just eight games in his first three season at the helm of the Indians, coach Webber only had one losing season in his final 17 seasons coaching the team — and none after 1974.

Jackson made it to the state quarterfinals three times during coach Webber’s tenure, including a state semifinal appearance in 1981, as coach Webber had a record of 130-71-2 at Jackson.

Nic Antoine, the author of the book, “The Jackson Indians: 100 Years of Gridiron Glory,” told the Southeast Missourian in 2008 coach Webber “was the most influential person in Jackson football history, without a doubt.”

Webber also was a successful wrestling coach at Jackson, leading the Indians to the Class A state championship in 1977. He was inducted into the Missouri Wrestling Association Hall of Fame in 2008, the Missouri Football Coaches Association Hall of Fame the following year and also was inducted into the Poplar Bluff Sports Hall of Fame in 1999.

Sievers credits Webber for inspiring his own decades-long career as a coach.

“Coach Webber is one of the reasons I wanted to coach,” Sievers said. “He was firm but fair, and his belief that its faith, family and football always stuck with me.

“One of the things I try to do is put a good team on the field, but I think my main job is to try to create outstanding young men because I always felt that was one of coaches’ main goals.”