GREEN BAY – He grew up in Wisconsin, went to school in Wisconsin, and has coached football previously in Wisconsin.
So landing the job as linebackers coach for the Green Bay Packers is about as full circle as it gets for Sam Siefkes, who has joined new defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon's staff in Green Bay.
"I don't take it lightly," said Siefkes of working for the team he grew up watching every Sunday from his Oconomowoc home. "If anything, it's helping me work even harder, which I didn't know was possible, prior to getting here."
How Siefkes got to Green Bay was via anything but a conventional route, but it always involved coming and going from his home state.
During college at Wisconsin-La Crosse, he got his start in coaching as a student assistant. Then, following an internship at Florida International, he enrolled in graduate school at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, and through some persistent door knocking was allowed to join Badgers defensive coordinator Dave Aranda's staff as a volunteer grad assistant.
He credits Aranda for giving him the piece of advice that truly launched his coaching career. Aranda told him to become a defensive coordinator, somewhere, and learn everything he could about the big picture of defensive football.
So over the last decade, Siefkes has been a defensive coordinator – at three different levels.
First, it was in Division III at Wisconsin-Platteville (2016-17), followed by Division I FCS at Wofford (2018-20). Then last year, he was defensive coordinator at a major college program, for Virginia Tech in the ACC.
In between Wofford and Virginia Tech, Siefkes broke into the NFL as a defensive assistant with Minnesota for two seasons (2021-22) and then under Gannon in Arizona for two more (2023-24), working as the Cardinals' linebackers coach.
But it's his experience as a coordinator that Siefkes believes has set him up for success in Green Bay and whatever the rest of his career holds.
"I think it allows for you to see the game in a little bit different of a lens," he said. "You see the issues for, not only your position, but all the other positions. You see what's hard to coach for your position and other positions."
That said, linebackers are his expertise, and Siefkes is fired up about a Packers group that features a rising star in Edgerrin Cooper, an accomplished veteran newcomer in Zaire Franklin, a reliable glue guy in Isaiah McDuffie, and an up-and-comer in Ty'Ron Hopper. Throw in a pair of veteran special-teamers in Nick Niemann and Kristian Welch plus undrafted rookie TJ Quinn and it's a pretty well-rounded crew.
Siefkes views his job as a teacher, first and foremost, as that's the profession he likely was headed for had coaching not worked out. During the offseason program, he's been focused on teaching his players all the assignments, rules and nuances of the defense, which Gannon and his staff are building as they go.
Reaching each guy individually is a challenge Siefkes has faced head on as he's gotten to know his linebackers.
"My thing as a teacher is, I want to make sure that I'm hitting all the different learning styles that guys have, right?" he said. "Not all guys learn the same. Coaches don't learn the same, and players don't learn the same. So my job is to cater to all of the players."
Now he's applying those lessons just 125 miles north of where he grew up, in a stadium where he attended a couple of games in his youth. The opportunity any Wisconsinite football coach dreams of isn't lost on him.
"I don't take it lightly, just to put it pretty bluntly," he said. "So every day, I try to have that mindset coming in to work here, that it means something a little bit different for this organization."
