Oller: Dog-loving Ohio State linebacker Steele Chambers ready to land on NFL real estate
This is the third in a series of stories on Steele Chambers’ quest to continue his football career in the NFL. The former Ohio State linebacker, who recently participated in Ohio State's pro day, is working out at Ohio State and preparing for the April 25-27 draft.
In less than three weeks, the best players in college football will be floating on air as they hear their names called during the first day of the April 25-27 NFL draft in Detroit.
And then there is Steele Chambers, who if he had his way would be floating on water when NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell welcomes more famous first-round draft picks onto the stage.
The Chattahoochee River runs 430 miles through the red clay of Georgia. In high school, Chambers and his buddies would “shoot the Hooch” by parking cars along the river, driving back up to a launch area and floating 5 miles back to their cars.
“I’d like to be doing that during the draft,” Chambers said. “But my mom’s not going to let me.”
Mama always wins. Whatcha gonna do?
Steele loves water. Cold. Warm. Doesn’t matter. Just so it’s wet.
“Find any body of water and I’ll jump in it,” he said, explaining that in January he used the Gulf of Mexico off Florida as a 60-degree cold tub while training for the draft.
I mention the north Atlantic, asking how he would have fared in the frigid water temperatures that greeted unfortunate passengers of the Titanic.
“I would have got up on that platform,” Steele said, sounding disgusted that Leo DiCaprio’s character froze to death rather than climb onto the door that saved Rose. “He just kind of quit. Just find a way.”
And that, in a nutshell, describes Steele’s attitude toward football, and really all of life. Just find a way.
Chambers arrived at Ohio State in 2019 as a tailback and got lost in the shuffle but found a way onto the field by converting to linebacker, where in 2023 he led the Buckeyes with 83 tackles. He is not expected to be drafted early, if at all. But he is not letting the naysayers deter him.
“I don’t trust a lot of people who are critiquing others,” he said. “Because usually it’s some dude in his basement saying that.”
Chambers’ draft preparation has included three measuring sticks: the Feb. 1 East-West Shrine game, Feb. 29-March 3 NFL Combine and March 20 pro day at Ohio State.
The pro day was the last stage before the draft, and Steele’s performance was about what he expected. Quickness is his biggest asset, and he turned in impressive times in the shuttle events. His 40-yard dash (4.6) was good enough. He thought his interview with the Minnesota Vikings went well.
He will continue to train until draft day, and even if no team calls, he hopes to sign as a free agent. Chambers isn’t worried. The goal is to make a career out of pro football, but Plan 1a is to buy land in Montana.
Turns out Chambers is not big on crowds, unless they’re packed into stadiums.
“Somewhere where there’s not a lot of people,” he said of his preferred living space. “Get some land in Montana, a front porch with a couple dogs. That’s the life right there. Maybe a pond or reservoir.”
Simple tastes for a no-frills member of Gen Z. Give him a piece of land, a dog, a guitar and maybe some hogs to hunt and he’s happy.
About that last part …
“I don’t hunt, but I’m going to start getting into it,” he said, adding that his roommate/OSU teammate Cade Stover has talked about hunting wild hogs.
I ask if he plans to hunt the ornery critters with gun or knife.
Definitely gun. Chambers is willing to try anything once, but he’s not crazy.
“I can’t tell my (NFL) team I got hurt hog hunting,” he said. “I have to be smart.”
One gets the sense Chambers would prefer operating far from civilization, but would be fine entering the fray of a big city.
“I was an introvert turned extrovert, but now still with introvert tendencies,” he said. “I’m kind of a mixed bag. I can do with people or without them.”
Either way, people fascinate him. Talk to him for a few minutes and you come away convinced he was studying you as much as you were getting to know him.
“I read a book, “How to read people like a book,” which was pretty good,” he said, smiling.
Chambers prefers reading to interacting on social media or playing video games, which quickly lose his interest.
“We’ll play video games a couple days, then drop it,” he said, adding that he and roommates Stover and Tommy Eichenberg have better things to do than “kill zombies.”
Such as?
Chambers took up guitar a few months ago and has a handful of songs he can play, including “Starting Over” by Chris Stapleton, “Free Fallin’” by Tom Petty and “Hurricane” by Luke Combs.
The song selection makes sense. Chambers is a man of the country, who loves chillin’ with friends and his dog, Maverick. Maybe mostly his dog.
“I’m going to get a second dog and name him Goose,” he said of continuing the Top Gun theme of pet names. “I’ll probably rescue one in a year or two, once Maverick is older.”
Maverick is a purebred husky.
“I think he cost $900,” Chambers said. “That’s cheap for a forever friend.”
Gotta love this guy.
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This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Ohio State football: Steele Chambers on training for 2024 NFL draft
