Most Satsuma High School football players spend their summer afternoons resting up before evening practice. Senior Matthew Ziebach spends his changing tires on 18-wheelers.
Ziebach, who will play running back and defensive end for the Gators this fall, worked a full shift at Southern Tire Mart from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. throughout the summer, then drove straight to practice, which began at 6 p.m. and ran anywhere from 90 minutes to two hours. The tight turnaround left him barely enough time to change before hitting the field, often still carrying the grease and grime of a day spent hauling heavy equipment.
The job is physically demanding, requiring him to wrestle lug nuts and wrenches on massive truck tires all day, but it was Ziebach’s own choice. He previously held an office position at the same company, where his father also works as a road technician, but asked for something more active.
“I didn’t want to work inside, I wanted to work outside,” Ziebach said.
He interviewed with the store manager and has worked the tire-changing job since the previous summer. “It ain’t fun, but you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do,” Ziebach said. “I’ve got to pay for my own gas, so I’ve got to work somehow. Since I was little, Dad let me go on road calls with him, and that’s something I knew how to do, and I figured it would be something I didn’t mind doing over the summer.”
New Satsuma head coach Rodney Jordan first took notice of Ziebach’s work ethic when the senior would arrive to practice still dressed in part of his work clothes.
“When I came on, others talked about him as a running back and maybe as a wildcat-type quarterback,” Jordan said. “Really, No. 1, he’s a tough kid. He works all day at an 18-wheeler mechanic shop where he’s changing 18-wheeler tires. So you know he’s got those big ole wrenches, working on those big ole tires and lug nuts and such all day, changing tires all day long.”
“We’ve been practicing in the evenings, trying to work around teachers’ meetings and all that,” Jordan continued. “He came in and had his work clothes on and he was dirty from head to toe, and when he came out to practice you would not know that he was doing that type of physical, manual labor all day, as far as his energy and effort at practice.”
Producing the same intensity at practice after a full day of manual labor is no small feat, but Ziebach has managed it at every session, he said.
“When I get to practice it’s like I flip a switch,” Ziebach said. “This ain’t work, this is practice. I let the tiredness go away and I just get after it.”
Jordan said watching the transformation firsthand left an impression. “He’d come in with dirt, smut and tire grime all over him, and when I saw him I thought, ‘I hope he’s got the energy for practice.’ But when you saw him on the field you would never know he’d been doing manual labor all day,” Jordan said. “When I say he’s a throwback, he’s a throwback. He’s kind of an old throwback to the days when everybody was two-platooning, and we’ll be doing that. He’s a no-nonsense guy who likes contact, let’s go play ball, likes work. He’s accountable to the team. That’s Matthew Ziebach. He’s a perfect example of this is how you should be as a young man and as a young athlete.”
Ziebach traces his work ethic back to lessons learned young. “Whenever I was younger, Mom would always be on me,” he said. “If I had to stay home all day she would have me cut the grass. And when I got done cutting the grass I’d go straight to football practice. She always said the chores should never affect my playing, and if it did, I’d be in trouble.”
The grind eases somewhat once the school year begins. Ziebach said his mother insists academics take priority once classes start, freeing him from his weekday shifts at the tire shop. “When school starts, Mom says school comes first, so I don’t have to work,” Ziebach said. “Every now and then I may go into Southern Tire Mart on Saturday and work, but most of the time I’m really sore from the Friday night game and can’t really walk, so I stay in bed. Once school starts, Mom and Dad will pay for my gas, but during the summer I have to make my own money.”
Ziebach’s work ethic has earned him respect, and a bit of good-natured teasing, from his Satsuma teammates. “Whenever I walk in they always say, ‘There’s the hardest working man,’ just joking around,” Ziebach said. “I guess in a way they look up to me, even though they go to work too. They just don’t get in grease and work on tires. But if I can do it, I know they could do it.”
At 5-foot-7 and 205 pounds, Ziebach is not the biggest player on Satsuma’s roster, but Jordan said he makes the most of his frame on both sides of the ball and has become a vocal leader in the locker room. “He’s obviously been a kid who has been a leader,” Jordan said. “Since I’ve been around, I have watched him around the other kids, and all the kids look to him as a team leader. When he speaks to them they all quiet down and listen to him. He’s a tough kid, a muscular kid, and does everything that you ask.”
“His game is a very physical game because he’s a strong guy,” Jordan added. “He’s not a very big guy, but he’s very strong. He’s a guy that encourages his teammates and he’s not afraid to challenge them in a positive way. If somebody is tired he’ll encourage them to push on. He’ll make a big hit and the other players react. He brings excitement with his physicality.”
Ziebach said the approach he brings to the tire shop and to the practice field both trace back to how his parents raised him. “At work they want you to always work and give it 100 percent, and really, since I was little, that’s how I’ve always been; no matter what I was doing, I’ve always given it 110 percent,” he said. “No matter what the consequences were, I was always going to give 110 percent the whole time. That’s how Mom and Dad raised me. Dad was one of my coaches in youth league and he didn’t put up with that halfhearted effort. If I didn’t give it 110 percent in every practice or game, I heard about it on the way home. It just became natural.”
All the long hours pay off on Friday nights, when Ziebach takes the field for the Gators. Asked what he enjoys most about game night, he did not hesitate. “Probably that first snap,” he said. “There’s just something about it. I don’t know if it’s the lights and the crowd or being out there with all the guys that I’m friends with, but there’s something about that first snap. And hearing the band. It just gives you the chills.”