Steve Lambert was making the scenic but somewhat long and lonely drive through southern Vermont, and slowed down when he saw something out of the corner of his eye.

Across the road, climbing out of a stream, he saw, for the first time in his young life, a bear.

Fitting. Because that’s exactly what the 6-foot-5, 255 pound Lambert would describe as his four-year road to playing college football since an illustrious career at Nashua North has been. He’s hoping that road through Vermont into New York that he took to get to the University of Albany will finally take him to the Division I football career he’s craved since graduating from North in 2017.

Granted, except for fall team workouts, he’ll have to wait until possibly this spring or even next fall to compete, thanks to the pandemic. But that may not be such a bad thing.

“It kind of works out in my favor, too, though, at the same time,” Lambert said. “I haven’t played in a while. I thought I was done with football.

“I was actually going to redshirt this year, but with the season being pushed off to the spring, I won’t and I can use these six months until we actually play to get back in the swing of things.”

Lambert is one of six kids, and was a standout receiver at North, graduating in 2017. In 2016 he had 12 touchdowns and 1,138 receiving yards as a senior, and for his Titan career, the numbers looked like this: 124 catches for 1,936 yards and 19 touchdowns. On defense he had 83 tackles and an interception, and was routinely an All-State/All Conference selection.

So, for a 6-5, 220 pound receiver, the future looked bright as he was getting a lot of Division I interest, with schools like UMass and the University of New Hampshire after him. In fact, word was Boston College was sending assistants to get a look at him during practice at North.

There was one major problem. Somehow he lacked the credits for a math class, geometry, and couldn’t get cleared by the NCAA Clearinghouse to accept any Division I or II offers.

He went for a prep school year at Tilton Academy with the idea he could fullfill all his academic requirements, but Lambert says the NCAA told him that the math class had to be taken in high school, not repeated. “That bothered me a lot,” Lambert said. “It was like a punch in the gut.”

Thus, that didn’t work out well midway through the year, and he went home. Another school, Independence (Kansas) Community College of “Last Chance U” Netflix documentary fame showed interest, and he visited there in January to visit and perhaps even stay there. “It seemed like too good of an opportunity to pass up,” he said, adding his parents William and Catherine warned against it.

They were right. Lambert wasn’t quite sure once he got there, and asked the coaches if he could come back for spring football and go from there. But he said that led to “weird vibes” from the coaching staff and ultimately he didn’t see the school as a fit. Soon he wasn’t in Kansas anymore, back home and frustrated again.

Finally, in the fall of 2018, Lambert, after making some contacts, enrolled at Framingham State, one of the first schools to recruit him at Nashua North, and was set to play Division III football. During camp he re-aggravated a sore left knee – possible torn meniscus – that he had been dealing with for years. After some rest, he finally got on the field and in his first college game he blew out the knee and had surgery to remove the meniscus and plica.

It looked like a farewell to football.

“I decided to focus on school and give up on football,” Lambert said, and as a political science major he not only made the Dean’s List, he joined the FSU student government, got inducted in to Alpha Lamba Delta Honor Society, and became an advocate for Ignite, which supports women in politics. On the outside, football seemed a distant memory, but inside Lambert was suffering from the effects of leaving the game.

“I took this past year off from football and it was my first year not playing since I was 11 or 12,” he said. “And to be honest, it put me in a dark place. So much free time, I wasn’t doing anything, and got into a bad funk.

“Every day I was trying to convince myself I was done (with football). But that didn’t work.”

But there is hopefully light at the end of Lambert’s long, dark tunnel. Late last winter, he saw a recruiting tweet and he reached out to now-former University of Albany (N.Y.) assistant coach Bobby Johnson, who had recruited him a bit during his junior year in high school. He responded to the tweet, describing himself as a “washed up 21-year old tight end” looking for a home.

“I remember telling myself it was the last line I’d ever throw towards football,” Lambert said, “and it worked.”

The Great Danes coaches liked his film, offered him a spot as a walk-on if he could get into UAlbany academically and Lambert went for it. With good grades, he had no problem.

Well, almost. A couple weeks ago, Lambert got a call from a Great Dane assistant while he was still here in the Nashua area – his family now lives in Milford – and was told he had to be in Albany at 5 p.m. for a physical. It was 1 p.m. So off he went, but he got pulled over for speeding before even reaching the highway. Oops. That delayed things enough that he had to text the staff and said he wouldn’t make it in time.

But even that worked out. They rescheduled the exam for a few days later, and he made two or three trips back and forth to bring all his things. Quarantine rules, etc. delayed the start of regular workouts until this week. Lambert can’t wait to start football activities “and get back into the groove of it. I’m very excited, but it’s going to be very weird (playing) because of whether there will be crowds or not. That was one of the factors in me wanting to play Division I. But I’m still excited about it.”

“The fact that he’s still trying to compete says a lot,” Nashua North coach Dante Laurendi said. “I don’t know that I’ve ever coached a more talented kid, top to bottom, in the sense of size, ability, athleticism. He could’ve been a four or five sport athlete if he wanted to at North.”

Laurendi says Lambert had great body control for a player his size, and is likely in the right place at Albany.

“There’s a lot of things he can do athletically,” Laurendi said. “So to see that he’s ended up in an established program, a very good program, in a great league, it’s exciting to see and I hope he can showcase his talent.”

Of course, Lambert would be going into his senior season right now had things progressed normally. Instead, he’s deemed a sophomore, with three years of eligibility remaining.

“This is what I’ve been trying to get to for the first time in four years,” Lambert said. “Practice as a Division I player.”

It’s quite limited though, and basically just conditioning drills and weight room work in rotating small groups. But it’s still the real deal for Lambert.

“I’ve definitely matured a lot,” Lambert said. “This has humbled me. In New Hampshire, even before high school, I’ve always been bigger. I always thought I was entitled. My arrogance caught up to me. And I don’t know if I would have stuck with school if my parents hadn’t pushed me in that direction.”

“He’s got a great opportunity,” Laurendi said. “That’s a talent you really want to see.”

Tom King may be reached at tking@nashuatelegraph.com, or@Telegraph _TomK.

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