Tuesday, April 13, 2004
Walk-on soph. opens eyes
Chambers learns intricacies of the game from RB spot
Article by:
Frank Rusnak - Sports Editor
• frusnak@northernstar.info
• Personal profile
NIU football’s redshirt sophomore Foster Chambers doesn’t
speak a foreign language, but he thought he needed to in order to play
with the Huskies.
A 5-foot-9, 195 pound running back, Chambers is not on scholarship
and came to NIU as a walk-on. He has played in only one play —
a special teams kickoff — in his NIU career, but running backs
coach DeAndre Smith said he has improved the most of any NIU back. He
said this only because of how raw Chambers was when he first arrived
in DeKalb.
“I remember last spring just sitting in the meeting room; it was
like the coaches were seriously talking Chinese,” said Chambers,
who runs a 4.51 40-yard dash. “I didn’t know if I’d ever
be able to catch up to any of this, but even last spring, I was messing
up all the running plays.”
He said in his first year his stance was terrible and he was holding
the ball too low. Smith helped him with all of that and his knowledge
— or lack thereof — of the game.
“I would just get the ball and I would run,” Chambers said
about his high school days at Walther Lutheran. “I didn’t
have any clue.”
Now he said he just wants a chance to contribute to the Huskies.
“He’s shown some explosiveness so far in camp,” Smith
said. “So far he’s at least got us interested in what he can
do. He’s doing some really good things right now.”
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