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“Prairie Roots” column for The Earlville Post
January 24, 2003

Cheng Hang

I took over the head varsity football coaching job at Ottawa High School in the fall of 1985. I did this somewhat reluctantly because I had enjoyed coaching at the freshman and sophomore levels and I was a full time English teacher, which meant hours and hours of grading papers each week. But when the varsity coaching position opened up again, I applied for it and looked forward to the challenge. Our school had gone through some tough times in the recent years, suffering three or four records of one win and eight losses in a row. It seems like sports programs can go in cycles, and we were down at the time. I was determined that we were going to get this football program turned around. Hard work was the only solution I could think of, so I told the varsity players when they reported the first day that we were going to have to hit the weight room after practice and run twice as many wind sprints than what would ordinarily be expected, to make up for lost ground. We opened our season against the Morris Redskins, a tough football school that had just won the Class 4-A State Championship the year before.

Along with head coaching duties, I coached the backfield and called the plays on offense, so I would be in the offensive huddle with my clipboard during that part of practice. I looked up at only one player in the huddle, Sean Walker, a sophomore tight end. With all the other players
I either looked directly into their eyes or glanced down at them a few inches. At least five or six times a practice I’d say to the team, “You guys should have your parents sue the city of Ottawa.” The players would nod their heads in agreement, not having a clue as to what I was talking about. Finally one day Mickey Herzog, one of the senior captains who presently is a coach at Ottawa Marquette, asked, “Coach Myers, what the heck are you talking about when you keep saying that
we should have our parents sue the city of Ottawa? It doesn’t make any sense.”

I explained, “I keep telling you to have your parents sue the city of Ottawa for building the sidewalks too close to your rear-ends because we’re too damned short on this team. We need some size! We’re too damned small!”

Our starting running back was a young man who stood five-foot-seven and weighed one-forty-five. He had dark brown eyes and jet black hair and he could run like the wind. His name was Cheng Hang, and he loved the game of football.
Cheng Hang was born in Laos, and he and his family had escaped from the Viet Cong communist army crossing the Cambodian River in a reed boat. The VC had opened fire on the boat as they fled and Cheng, a two-year-old boy, had caught two VC bullets which he still carries in his body to this day. He didn’t tell me that story; his teammates who grew up with him playing on various sports teams informed me.

Well, we had worked hard getting ready for the season and I knew that although we were not the most talented athletes in the world, our kids played with a lot of enthusiasm and heart and they loved to play football. So we traveled twenty miles east to take on Morris, the reigning state champs. During the opening quarter and a half, the team didn’t let me down. They were flying all over the field making plays and hitting like crazy. Finally with about three minutes left in the half,
Morris punched the ball into the end zone and we were down 7-0.

“That’s all right!” I encouraged the team. “You’re playing a helluva game! Let’s get the ball on this kickoff and take it down for a score before halftime and we’re right back into this game!”

Ottawa had a junior running back, we’ll call him Jeremy to protect his name, who was standing on the ten yard line to field the kickoff. He caught the ball, headed up field behind his blockers and was destroyed by three Morris tacklers, fumbling the football in the process. One of the Morris players picked up the loose ball and ran it in for a touchdown. We were down 14-0!

Again we lined up to receive the kickoff and I encouraged Jeremy, who was really shook up after fumbling the ball, “That’s okay, Jeremy. Those things happen. Now catch this kick and run it all the way back for a touchdown and we’re right back in this game!”

Morris lined up and kicked the ball high and deep right at Jeremy. He froze. The ball hit him in the chest numbers and bounced back into the arms of an oncoming opponent who grabbed it on the run and crossed the goal line for another touchdown. 21-0. I was going berserk on the sidelines. When we lined up for the ensuing kickoff return, Jeremy wasn’t on the field. His rear-end was parked on the end of the bench for the rest of the game, maybe for the rest of eternity.

After a decent runback our offense picked up a couple of first downs and I started to think maybe we could score before halftime and claw our way back into the game. Hope does spring eternal in the human breast. We were passing the football a little more than I liked to, but we were desperate. Then the Morris strong safety picked off a pass out in the flat and ran it all the way back for their fourth touchdown in less than three minutes. 28-0 at halftime and the head coach was a raving maniac!

I don’t remember what the final score ended up that nightmarish evening— 42-6— or something like that. Coaches have a survival instinct that blocks out certain memories like that or they’d go totally insane. Now one of the reasons I gave up coaching football is that over the weekend the coaching staff would have to study Friday night’s game film to grade out the players.

We would watch each play ten or twelve times so that each coach had a chance to grade every one of his players as best he could. This took hours on a Sunday afternoon, and it was the most boring, redundant job I’ve ever had. I hated it. But as I graded Cheng Hang on his play, I was amazed. This young man had rushed for ninety-four yards against the number one defense in the state. When he wasn’t carrying the ball, he faked so well that two Morris linebackers tackled him.
Or he was blocking defensive ends who stood six-feet- four-inches, weighed two hundred-forty pounds, and benched pressed three hundred and fifty pounds. He had played a tremendous football game.

That Monday after a short meeting before practice, the team broke down by positions so that each coach could go over some mistakes with his players and hopefully we could learn from these mistakes and become a better football team the next week. As I gathered with the offensive
backs, I reviewed Cheng Hang’s performance. 94 yards rushing. Great fakes. Good job of blocking. “Young man,” I said, looking him right in the eyes, “you played one hell of a football game!”

Cheng straightened up to attention, looking me right in the eye, and stated emphatically,
“It is my duty, Mr. Myers. It is my duty.” That’s the way Cheng Hang played the game.

(To be continued next week with “Cheng Hang going AWOL”)