January Alumnus of the Month: Karl Seibert

When did you play?

I played from 2002-2007.  The club at the time was a giant in my mind, but looking back it was a fairly loosely organized bunch of college kids with occasional help from local olde boys.  My first day at school, I emailed the club president, and ten minutes later my Markley dorm room phone rang; Kevin Barlow was on the line and said he’d be there in fifteen minutes to pick me up for practice.  It was so early in the season that it was a combined session with the city club.  I remember experiencing very little welcoming from the older men’s club guys – mostly just yelling and harsh direction – but the college guys whom I remember are some of my favorite characters of all time; Mike Livanos, Craig Williams, Kurt Klein, Brad Lusk, Sammy Weiman, Steve Smolenski, Wes Farrow, Kurt Sars, and heaps more.  I remember being picked up regularly from Markley in Kurt Sars’ Saab, along with Matt Trenary, Mike Babyeater Eller, Kevin Vanderjagt, Timm Hannon, and Corey “Coney” Kanitz.  Coney was my randomly assigned roommate, and I suckered him into living with me for the next three years.  Hilarious.  I love him still.  In those days, the rugby guys lived at 1115 Packard, and many of us were lucky enough to spend most Thursdays and Saturdays there.  As probably a lot of guys do, I remember my early years of college as sort of a movie-style montage of grainy, incredible episodes where most of the time I’m in awe of the impossibly monumental characters around me.  My life completely revolved around the club for the next five years.

Any special honors (ie captain, chair positions, midwest finals etc)?

I was elected captain in my fifth (5th) year.  I’ll never forget what an honor that was.  I was privileged to work with a great man, Steve Crozier, who helped coach and provide Northern insight.  He also took me into the lab he worked at for weekly visits and deep froze a wart I had on my hand, and I think made it worse and worse until I guess it worked and now you should see the scar.

Favorite memory or memories

Me and Matt Trenary worked out pretty much every day at the CCRB or IM buiding for four years.  I once destroyed Coney’s and my dorm room and tried to convince Coney it was vandals.  Rubes wore ankle weights to training a few times. Rubes of course is Josh Rubin, who was the third member of “the package” (ie if you picked one of us for a team you got the other two) with Matt and me.  I’ll never forget staying up till 4am at his (Rubes’) house to watch my first live World Cup in 2003.  Aaron “Dobbs” Dodd ran head on into a brick wall one time in Pittsburgh.  Smo got his bag stolen by a monkey in Thailand and while reporting it stolen said it contained, “papers . . . business papers”.  We won a million games in 2004.  My dad came to just about every game I ever played in, and still comes even if I don’t play.  I’ve scored tries in games, and once I hit a drop goal in a game.  Andrew Finn bought me potato chips one time.  Dan Cronin and Evan Currie have the same birth-date as me and went to the same high school as me, so I lumped myself into their strata of cool despite numerous inadequacies.  Matt and me used to drive Champion work trucks through the Diag during the day.  Ben Becker might have some kind of personality disorder or something, and I loved living with him and his brother in an abandoned fish cannery in WA to work on their uncle’s boats for two summers.  Ted Pixley and I met in 2003, and last year I officiated his wedding.  Olde Boys Weekend is a huge part of my memory; it’s an incredible idea that gets realized year after year and is great based solely on the quality of individuals who attend.  Kevin Zimmer paid for a bunch of us to get into a concert in Erie, PA, and I somehow had us all removed within one minute.  Dobbs cut the roof off his car and for a while it had a moonroof that pretty much just blew insulation in your eyes.  We left Brett Barna in Thailand.  Walking around campus breathing in the cold air with Matt T. before and after workouts is a very strong memory.  Matt Rosales and I snuck into the main seating area at the Kentucky Derby, while Dobbs was wrapped in a tarp over by one of the turns.  Rubes had a pet opossum and it got totally flattened by a car.  We were dressed like hooligans at a block party and overheard, “Oh, those are the rugby players, they can do whatever they want.”

What are you doing now?

I’ve helped run the city club in town since 2008; being the captain of it is really just being the team errand boy.  We’ve had a ball the last 5 years and do fairly well on the field.  Though I think it’s more about making positive, long-lasting friendships.  I’m proud to be an Olde Boy, and have helped the real brains of the Ann Arbor operation – Jeff Hagan, Aaron “Tex” Dodd, Dave Perpich, JR Hagerman, Jack Atkinson, Dan Mascellino, Tom Stulberg, Dale Tuttle, Jack Fischer, and a few others – plan stuff.  Doug Chapman has gotten me and the team into CrossFit which has challenged and helped a lot of how I think.  I’ve worked for Jeff Hagan and Stulie until just recently.  Jeff has been a sort of mentor to me since undergrad and I think all of us in town are lucky to have such a great guy around.  My wonderful girlfriend Kenyon is very understanding, and I started dating her seven years ago when she lived 2 doors down from me while I lived at the rugby house on S. Division.  When I’m not name-dropping in rugby alumni-of-the-month posts, I work in the IT department at Edwards Brothers Malloy as a project manager.  Scrum is the name of iterative development methodology I proselytize – it’s named after rugby.