Former Romeoville Football Standout Stingily Steps into Spotlight at Northern Illinois

Cameron Stingily is returning to his football roots.

Stingily—a Romeoville High School graduate—will be the starting tailback when defendiing Mid-American Conference champion and Orange Bowl entry Northern Illlinois opens the football season Saturday (Aug. 31) at Iowa.

Kickoff is at 2:30 p.m. at Kinnick Stadium in Iowa City. (TV: Big Ten Network).

Stingily was a standout running back during his high school playing days at Romeoville. After signing with NIU, he was moved to linebacker by then-Huskies coach Jerry Kill. Later, he returned to running back and emerged in fall drills as one of the brightest lights for the Huskies.

“He’s surprised us, not from an ability standpoint but from how he’s prepared and gotten himself here,” stated NIU coach Rod Carey in a recent Chicago Tribune report. “I don’t know if he understood what it was going to take. I don’t know if we knew he was going to be able to do it, but he did it.”

Northern’s need for a new runner grew stronger when tailback Akeem Daniels went down with an ankle injury. No timetable has been established for his return. The Huskies have won 21 of their last 23 games dating back to Oct. 1, 2011.

One of the two losses was an 18-17 setback to Iowa in last year’s season-opener at Soldier Field in Chicago.