Very few Harvard students can claim that they formed a one-two offensive punch with Rasham Salaam, Colorado's star tailback, recently voted by sportswriters as the best college football player in the country.

Larry W. Cheng '96 can.

Cheng lived through the ultimate sports fantasy when he teamed with Salaam to lead La Jolla Country Day School to the California state football championship. Along the way, as a split end, Cheng had 25 catches with 10 touchdowns, averaging a whopping 35 yards per catch.

According to Cheng, who is 6 feet tall and Weighs 180 pounds, the game plan for California's highest rated high school offense in 1990 was to give it to Salaam, and then occasionally air it out to Cheng, streaking down the sidelines.

The strategy worked to perfection. La Jolla once ran up a 45 point lead in the first quarter against a hapless opposition, prompting the other team to quit after just 15 minutes.

Even the least inclined sports fan may take note of one curious detail about this offensive combination--the second half of this dynamic duo is Asian.

It is an understatement to say that it is a rare to find Asian-Americans who excel on the football field. Most sports fans would be hard-pressed to name even one Asian in the NFL. Yet Cheng said he never noticed he was a bit of a pioneer, breaking Asian stereotypes on the football field, until his senior year when his government teacher discussed stereotypes and discrimination with him and a Korean friend.

"We happened to be talking about racism and stereotypes when she pointed out to us that Robert and I were breaking stereotypes by being atypical Asians in that we were athletic, sociable, etc," Cheng recalls.

Cheng's friend was a bodybuilder, while Cheng garnered All-City honors in football, basketball and track.

At Harvard, Cheng is part of a recent surge in Asians in campus leadership positions who are continuing to break down the stereotypes that have plagued all Asian-Americans.

"When people think of Asians, inevitably labels like `wallflower,' `math-science nerd,' and `good citizen' come up," said Alex H. Cho, former president of Harvard's Asian-Americans Association.

Cheng was elected last fall as the first-ever Asian-American president of Harvard Student Agencies.

In a tinge of irony or perhaps clairvoyance, Salaam nicknamed his high school teammate, "money."

"He called me that because whenever they threw me the ball, it was a sure thing that I wouldn't drop it," Cheng says.

While Salaam has gone on to fame and future fortune in the NFL, Cheng's future does not look too shabby either.