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.”