Sitting in his pickup truck on an April afternoon last semester, Pat Schiller stared into space, wondering when he would be able to play football again.

While spring 2010 classes were finishing up, the Huskies were engaged in their annual spring practices. Schiller- the team’s third leading tackler in 2009- planned on using the practices to make some slight tweaks to his game. The redshirt junior’s plans changed dramatically, though, during one spring scrimmage.

“I was just pursuing a bubble screen to the boundary,” Schiller said. “Then the running back cut in and I planted and I heard something pop in my knee. I knew something was wrong, but I didn’t know what it was.”

The team trainer’s were unsure to what extent the knee had been injured, so for precautionary reasons, brought in an orthopedic surgeon. After examining Schiller’s knee, the surgeon had little doubt as to what extent the NIU linebacker had injured his leg.

“He knew right away it was a torn ACL,” Schiller said. “Right there after hearing that I was devastated; the initial shock of it was really big for me.”

After wrapping his head around the injury, Schiller immediately wanted to know the earliest date possible for his return. Informed that he could get back in time for conference play, Schiller circled the Huskies first MAC game.

During the early stages of rehabilitation, however, Schiller’s physicians gave him some bad news.

“They told me I had to get another surgery for my meniscus,” Schiller said. “Which was rough because I had to go back under the knife and start the rehab process again.”

In early July, Schiller had the second surgery to repair his damaged meniscus. While the redshirt junior found the second surgery discouraging, NIU athletic trainer Kammy Powell knew the second surgery would help Schiller get back on Brigham Field a lot sooner.

“I know it sounds weird, but the second surgery actually fixed the problem that was slowing him down,” Powell said. “We were really able to speed things back up.”

Back on the road to recovery, Schiller started working on flexing and extending the knee. Upon progressing, he moved to the underwater treadmill, slowly jogging in the water.

When cleared to run, Schiller took his rehab to the football field, jogging around the field to get the knee to full strength. Schiller could feel his knee getting better, but the monotonous nature of running got old fast.

“To get my knee back it was just a lot of conditioning every single day and it wasn’t always fun,” Schiller said. “But I knew if I wanted to get back for conference I had to work hard.”

Through the rehab process, Schiller maintained that he would be cleared in time for conference play. True to his word, the redshirt junior got his first game action in 2010 against Akron, the Huskies first MAC opponent- tallying four tackles against the Zips.

NIU head coach Jerry Kill has worked Schiller back into the lineup slowly, frustrating the linebacker at times. Schiller, however, still see’s a lot of positives to be taken from his injury.

“It’s really helped me see the coaching aspect of the game, and be a set of eyes for the coaches and younger guys,” Schiller said. “I’ve really become a better player overall.”