The University of Michigan football team took revenge on Hawaii on Saturday, beating the Rainbow Warriors 56-10 in a “close” game.
Revenge, you might ask? For what? For 1988, I say, when Reggie Ho, a 5-foot- 5-inch, 135-pound Kaneohe lad, kicked four field goals for Notre Dame and beat Michigan 19-17.
That’s what I was thinking Saturday when Michigan beat Hawaii on the gridiron. It was payback for what a placekicker from the islands did to the Wolverines on Sept. 10, 1988, exactly 34 years ago to the day.
Reggie who?
Ho was a walk-on kicker for Notre Dame, his father, Reginald Ho, a retired doctor at Straub, told me.
It all took place in South Bend, Ind., before 59,000 fans at Notre Dame Stadium. Notre Dame was ranked 13th in the nation in preseason polls, and Michigan was ninth.
Ho had played football at Saint Louis School in Kaimuki, which went undefeated in 1983. It won the Interscholastic League of Honolulu championship and Prep Bowl.
In his senior year in 1984, Ho was far and away the league’s best kicker, the Honolulu Star-Bulletin’s Dave Reardon said, making eight field goals and 17 extra points.
He then went to Notre Dame, where he concentrated on his studies. After a few semesters, however, he felt he was missing out on the whole college experience.
Ho decided to try out for Lou Holtz’s Fighting Irish football team. To prepare, he practiced kicking in the school’s parking lot with streetlights as make-believe goalposts.
Come back the next day
Lisa Kelly, who’s written three books about Notre Dame, interviewed him in 2020. “In the fall of my sophomore year,” Ho told her, “I went to the coach’s office and asked the secretary if I could try out for the football team. The secretary told me that the coaches were busy and asked me to come back the next day.
“The next day I came back and she told me the same thing. This happened three days in a row.
“On the fourth day, I brought my books and asked her if I could just sit in the lounge and study while waiting for one of the coaches to have time to speak with me. She agreed, and so I sat and waited.
“A couple of hours went by, people came and went, the secretary left for the day, the cleaning crew came in, and finally one of the coaches (Scott Raridon, the weight training coach) passed by and asked if he could help me. I explained to him that I was waiting to see one of the coaches to talk about trying out for the football team.”
Ho was invited to try out in the spring. When he showed up, he found seven others were trying out for the kicking position. “I had no idea that many people would be trying out for kicker,” Ho said.
“First, we did kickoffs, and then we did 10 field goals each. I made nine out of 10, missing the 50-yard kick.”
Everyone else made fewer than eight. They kept Ho and two others. “I started practicing with the team in my junior year. I was so surprised and excited!”
Junior year
Ho didn’t play much in his junior year. Holtz sent him in to kick an extra point against Navy. Holtz thought it was an opportunity for Ho to play and that he might never kick again.
“That was my first play in a game, and I could have died and gone to heaven at that point.” Ho recalled.
“I literally could have never played another play at Notre Dame and would have been totally OK with that. It was amazing to just have any part in Notre Dame football!
“Getting on the field before a high school-size crowd is one thing, but getting on the field in front of 59,000 screaming fans is an entirely different experience altogether.
“I was more scared of being yelled at by Coach Holtz than I was of getting booed at by 59,000 people in the stadium.”
Senior year
“When I went to the locker room for the first practice of 1988, I was completely shocked to find out that I was tentatively No. 1 on the posted depth chart.”
Michigan was the first home game of his senior year, and the first time he got to start.
Ho’s father thinks his son’s time on the Saint Louis football team a few years earlier got him used to playing before big crowds.
“When I ran out onto the field, knowing that I was Notre Dame’s starting kicker, that truly was my most memorable moment.”
Notre Dame scored first. Ricky Watters returned a Michigan punt 81 yards for a touchdown. Ho kicked the extra point. Notre Dame took a 7-0 lead.
At the end of the first quarter, Ho kicked a 31-yard field goal to extend Notre Dame’s lead to 10-0. Michigan fumbled the kickoff, and Notre Dame recovered at the Michigan 22.
Second, third field goals
Ho was sent in to kick another field goal after Notre Dame lost yardage. The 38-yarder was good.
Michigan scored a touchdown in the second quarter and trailed 13-7 at the half.
At the start of the third quarter, Notre Dame’s Ricky Watters fumbled a Michigan kick at the 14-yard line. Michigan recovered and, in a few plays, scored its second TD and took the lead 14-13.
In the fourth quarter, Notre Dame drove 68 yards in 12 plays. On fourth down Ho kicked his third field goal, this time from 26 yards, to give Notre Dame a 16-14 lead.
Michigan took the kickoff and, 16 plays later, kicked a 49-yard field goal to retake the lead, 17-16. Only 5:39 remained in the game.
Fourth field goal
Notre Dame then mounted a 71-yard drive to the Michigan 26 but was stopped. “We could not quite get in the end zone, and we called upon Reggie,” Holtz said.
On fourth down, with 1:13 to go in the game, Ho attempted his fourth field goal.
“It isn’t very often that Notre Dame turns its fate over to a 5-5, 135-pound kicker,” the TV announcer said as Ho lined up. He sent the ball through the uprights, to give Notre Dame a 19-17 lead.
“He ended up kicking four-for-four field goals,” Holtz said, “tying the Notre Dame record. I never expected Reggie to become a folklore legend at Notre Dame.”
Michigan missed a field goal at the end of the game. The Fighting Irish had upset the Wolverines.
Moments after leaving the field to chants of “Reggie, Reggie,” Ho was given first crack at the media in the interview room under Notre Dame Stadium.
“You’ve got a 3.8 (grade point average) in premed,” quipped coach Holtz. “You go first.”
“The unlikely-looking football hero kept the media laughing with his own ‘Saturday Night Live’ show,” reporter John Vanden Heede wrote. “When asked how he was going to celebrate, he said he was going to study.” He was serious.
Holtz spoke next. “If someone had told me before the game, ‘Coach, to beat Michigan, you’re going to have to have your placekicker kick four field goals,’ I’d have said, ‘Well, then we lose.’
“But the guy was unbelievable. He made every one of them, right down the middle. God bless him. We won the game because of Reggie Ho.”
The Reggie Ho game
The Sept. 10, 1988, game is known as “the Reggie Ho game” at Notre Dame. They went on to beat Purdue, Stanford, USC, Navy, Penn State and several other schools to earn a spot in the 1988 National Championship Fiesta Bowl against West Virginia.
Notre Dame was undefeated in 1988. Ho ended up making nine of 12 field goals and 32 of 36 after-touchdown points that season. Today he is a cardiologist at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia.
In 2015, ESPN’s series “30 for 30” made a TV show titled “Student/Athlete” about Ho’s football and medical careers. It was directed by doctor, comedian and actor Ken Jeong.
Notre Dame has not won a national championship since 1988.
Far-fetched?
OK, so maybe it’s far-fetched to think Michigan was looking to get even Saturday night for something that happened 34 years ago.
I admit, it’s a stretch to think anyone on the Michigan team even remembered what Ho did for Notre Dame and blamed Hawaii for it.
But as the Michigan-Hawaii game ended last week, I had the fleeting thought — now we’re even, Michigan!
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Bob Sigall writes about interesting Hawaii people, places and organizations every Friday. Send him your comments or suggestions at Sigall@Yahoo.com.
