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.”