At a football practice earlier this summer Poplar Bluff head coach David Sievers kept looking at his watch.
Sievers was waiting for a whistle to blow, signaling the players to rotate and switch groups. So he kept looking, wondering why nobody had whistled, then he realized he was the one who was supposed to do that.
"I've actually lost track of the fact a couple of times that I'm the one who is supposed to be in charge of this group now. We'll go somewhere and they'll want to talk to the head coach and I'll go, 'Oh crap, that's me,'" said Sievers, who was named head football coach in March.
"I've told coach (John David) Pattillo and coach (Lance) Bell, 'I've been around for 30 years and I've seen a lot of things and I think I know everything that is going on, but please don't hesitate to say, did you forget this, did you forget that.' There's a real good chance we'll be out in practice waiting for groups to switch because I forgot to switch them."
Thirty years of habits as an assistant coach can be tough to break.
"I'm just trying to remember that I'm the one who has to call the shots around here," Sievers said. "It is something I've wanted to do for a long time and now it is time to see if I have got what it takes to run this program."
The initial shock of getting the head coach job for the Mules faded away fairly quickly as Sievers, who also applied for the job in 2008 and 2011, put together the summer calendar and various little things. When Sievers was an assistant, the head coach just handed him the schedule or whatever it might be.
The first official practice of the season is Monday morning. Sievers will still be coaching the offensive line, just like he always has. In fact, very little is going to change on the field.
The offense and defense are going to be the same, with maybe a few different formations mixed into the offense. Sievers is still the guy taking care of the athletic fields. He isn't going to be calling plays and admits that would probably be a bad idea.
"I could call an offense 25-30 years ago. I am just old fashioned enough that if we never threw the ball I'd be happy," Sievers said. "I think it is really important for people to know their limitations and I kinda know mine."
As the head coach, Sievers describes himself as the CEO of the team, overseeing and bringing together all these parts into a successful group.
"My best efforts that I can give to the football program is making sure the kids do things the right way," he said.
In that regard, one of the things he is implementing is a pregame meal each Thursday night. He is also encouraging parents to attend postgame meals each Friday night in the high school cafeteria.
For the pregame meals, the Mules have partnered with local churches, who are sponsoring and organizing the meals. Sievers is cognisant of the amount of time playing football takes up, and is a bit hesitant to ask his players to commit even more time, but he wants the team to come together, as well as be part of the community just a little bit more and thinks the extra time for the pregame meal is worth it.
With the postgame meals, parents are invited because sometimes Sievers doesn't meet the parents of his seniors until Senior Day, and he shakes their hands as their son is introduced. It is yet another way for him to bring all these parts together.
"I'm going to do everything I can to win as many football games as I can, but ultimately my job is to make sure these kids turn into good young men," Sievers said.
For his first season, Sievers is tasked with replacing 22 seniors who completed Poplar Bluff's third unbeaten and untied regular season in history and climbed as high as No. 6 in the state rankings. The program has won at least eight games three years in a row. However, Sievers is worried about numbers. He's got about a dozen seniors, not all of whom played last year. Additionally, he's waiting for people to step up into leadership roles and for the team in general to buy in.
"If we want to be successful, football has to be a top priority and I'm thinking it is not quite there yet for the kids. But it has just been summer. When we get cranked up here next week with two-a-days, I think it will sink in that it is time," Sievers said. "I like to use Tyson Cox as an example. Tyson was the type of kid who wouldn't say anything if his hair was on fire. He wouldn't ask you for anything, but Tyson just did his job and everybody recognized that. Even though Tyson didn't intend to be a leader on the team, he was just because of his effort and his attitude and the way he handled himself."
Sievers replaces Mark Barousse, who was 77-47 in 12 seasons over two tenures. He was also the eighth different head coach Sievers worked for over the past 30 years. During that time, Poplar Bluff has gone 166-144 with four district championships and eight SEMO North Conference titles.
Poplar Bluff is 25-6 over the past three seasons, matching the win total of any three-year stretch in the program's history since 1920. It also won 25 games over three years from 1974-76 under coach Tom Telle, from 1951-53 under Dutch Wyatt, and from 1926-28 with E.T. "Pete" Peters.
Poplar Bluff opens its season at home Aug. 24 against Sumner and will host Riverview Gardens (Aug. 31), Ritenour (Sept. 14), Farmington (Sept. 21), Cape Central (Sept. 28) and Chaminade (Oct. 12).