Ho Leaves Harvard Legacy After Career-Ending Injury

Cheng Ho deserves better than this.

After coming to the United States not knowing English, let alone football, he helped Harvard to back-to-back Ivy League titles in 2007 and 2008. With all the odds he’s already overcome, the senior running back deserves better than to watch his career end with a lisfranc (mid-foot) sprain suffered last week during practice.

But true to form, Cheng Ho refuses to say goodbye to the team and the sport that have meant so much to him. He comes to practice and meetings early every day, gets fully dressed for every practice and does everything he can to rehab his foot. If he is to spend the last three games of his college career on the sideline, he will not be sulking in a corner. He will wear his heart on his sleeve, just as he has done throughout his career.

“Cheng Ho has to be hands down the most influential vocal leader on the team,” junior receiver Marco Iannuzzi says. “Everyone knows it. If you’ve seen him on the sideline, he gets jacked up, and he gets everyone around him jacked up.”

Ho learned to play with emotion as a nine-year-old basketball player in Taiwan, putting in two-a-days year round for three-straight years.

“If it wasn’t because of [my basketball coach], I probably wouldn’t be able to play a sport at this level,” Ho says. “There would be drills where we would do suicides—conditioning drills—and he wanted people to scream as loud as they could, [to have] the mentality of a warrior. I kind of enjoyed that.”

Ho’s warrior mentality has been evident throughout his Harvard career. As a freshman, he managed to make a name for himself playing behind then Ivy League all-time leading rusher Clifton Dawson ’07.

“Initially when coming in [as a freshman], I was willing to do anything to get on the playing field no matter what,” Ho says. “Having a guy like Clifton right in front of me was just a tremendous experience.”

The freshman wasn’t shy about seeking out Dawson’s advice, something he continues to do to this day.

“He’s extremely coachable, that’s one of his best characteristics,” Dawson says. “It was a pleasure not only playing with him but helping him after my career was done to become the outstanding player he is today.”

The year after Dawson graduated, Ho came into his own. As a sophomore, he teamed with then junior Chris Pizzotti ’09 to lead the team to an undefeated league record and the Ivy Title.

“I wanted to make up for the offense that Clifton had been able to produce,” Ho recalls. “I was very very hungry to do well; fortunately we have a great offensive line for me to do that.”

No one outside the team expected much from the Crimson. Dawson had graduated, quarterback Liam O’Hagan was hurt, and Yale was rumored to have an unstoppable team.

But Ho and Pizzotti emerged as marquee players and built momentum throughout the season, while the heralded Bulldogs were beating their opponents by decreasing margins. On Nov. 17, 2007, Harvard defeated Yale, 37-6, and Ho led the team in rushing with 63 yards.

“It’s just hard to describe,” Ho says. “Afterward it’s kind of an emotional moment, obviously it was very fulfilling at the same time.”

Up to this point, Ho’s story is the perfect narrative for a feel-good movie—a journey from Taiwan to the top of the Ivy League. But here the story takes a drastic turn. Starting his junior year, continuous setbacks limited Ho’s playing time and dropped him down the team’s depth chart.

Just as he was starting to reclaim his spot, Ho began coughing up blood during the Cornell game in Week 4—resulting from a ruptured blood vessel in his lung that Ho initially suffered against the Bulldogs the season prior. When he returned in Week 7, an away game at Dartmouth, Ho was hurt again—this time his shoulder.

“I know that life is not fair,” the running back says. “Sometimes you can do things right, and they can still go wrong, and I completely am aware of that, and my attitude is that I’m going to play with the cards I’m dealt.”

But when Ho played, he averaged 65 yards-per-game, helping his team to another Ivy title.

“Whenever Cheng got in the game, he produced,” Pizzotti says. “I think that’s something people will remember about him. He hasn’t always been the feature guy, but he’s always there to produce and produce at a very high level.”

This year, Ho has been third on the depth chart, playing behind junior Gino Gordon and freshman Treavor Scales. Ho got one last day in the sun on the Oct. 3 contest at Lehigh. With Gordon dinged up and Scales home for a family funeral, Ho stepped up to the tune of 132 yards on 21 carries to lead the Crimson to a 28-14 victory over the Mountain Hawks.

“He ran like a beast that game,” captain Carl Ehrlich says.

Having watched most of the Crimson’s pursuit of a third-straight Ivy title from the sideline, Ho may never again enter a game. Football, it seems, has given all it will give to Cheng Ho.

“It’s heartbreaking to hear that he’s hurt,” Dawson says.

Heartbreaking for his friends and fans, but Ho is far from broken, and he is determined to give back to the game that has meant so much to him.

“[Football] basically opened a new world,” Ho said. “Without football I wouldn’t be here at Harvard right now. So that said, I really would like to keep that as part of my life.”

This September, Ho was part of a TV series—NFL China—that teaches the people of China about the game of football. Ho says that bringing football to China is something he hopes to do in the future.

“The more I think about it, the more excited I get,” he says. “That’s something I really want to contribute...to share my stories...I’d like to start a league there.”

Cheng and NFL China hope that his life of defying odds will inspire people in China to take up football.

“You can’t find a kid who loves football more than he does,” Pizzotti says. “He’s a great ambassador for the game.”

But while Ho is excited about the possibility of a future with the sport, he’s not willing to say goodbye to his playing days yet. He’s trying to contribute as much as he can to the success of the team off the field.

“He’s not selfish,” Iannuzzi says. “I still see him giving tips and mentoring Treavor Scales.”

But there’s no doubt that Ho is itching to get back in on the action, and he refuses to discount the chance, however unlikely, of a late recovery.

“The training staff [doesn’t] think it’s likely,” Ho said. “[But] it’s just my personality that I don’t give up...I really don’t want to look back and have any regrets.”

Regardless of whether or not Ho returns to the game, his legacy is undisputed. His teammates and Harvard fans will remember him as someone who has taken every opportunity and has always left everything on the field.

“He’s always brought an unbelievable intensity,” Ehrlich says. “He’ll always hold himself to the highest standards.”

Ho will be far from invisible the remainder of this season, and he certainly won’t be silent. He’ll be the loudest fan in the whole stadium. And if he does manage to get in the game, he’ll hold nothing back, playing with the same intensity he’s always had.

And why not? As he says, “I’ve got a whole life to recover.”