Texas LB putting in work in offseason
Wichita Falls (Texas) Rider linebacker James Chambers is not resting on his laurels after a season in which he piled up 176 tackles and nine sacks. In fact, Chambers hopes to eclipse those numbers in 2008 and he has shown through his offseason work ethic that he is on the right track.
Just look at Chambers' recent performance at the Houston Nike Combine last weekend for evidence of his hard work.
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Chambers ran a 4.67 40, threw the powerball 42.1 feet, had a 4.43 shuttle and a 37.5 inch vertical jump. Still, Chambers expected more.
"I was happy with it," Chambers said. "I think I could've done better in the shuttle. I usually run about a 4.17 but I was wearing tennis shoes and I kept slipping."
Even more impressive than his numbers in the combine is the weight that he has gained. After weighing in at 204 pounds at the SMU Five-Star Academy in February, Chambers is now up to 222 pounds, just three pounds off his target playing weight of 225.
"Two weeks before I went to the thing at SMU I weighted like 190 pounds," he said. "I've just been eating everything I can."
The highly productive linebacker is now beginning to gain some attention from colleges as well.
"Nobody's called me yet but I've been getting a lot of letters," he said. "LSU, Rice, SMU, Tulsa, Utah, OU, Yale, Harvard and Stanford are interested. I'm looking for a place with a good education and I'd like to stay close to home."
Currently, Chambers has four camps planned for the summer: SMU, North Texas, Rice and Texas Tech. He also has hopes of putting up some big numbers as a senior.
"I'm just trying to get my stats better than last year," he said. "I gotta get better than 176 tackles and 9 sacks. Most of the games we had to shut them off at halftime because we were beating them by too much. We should be good. We've got a bunch of good juniors coming back."