showcasing some of Harvard’s stellar graduates.
Cliff Wang had wrestled since he was 6. The sport had taught him countless lessons about determination, hard work, perseverance through adversity that echoed through his life off the wrestling mat.
In his sophomore season, while wrestling the country’s eighth-ranked wrestler, it taught him something else: There is a time for everything in life. Despite his continued love of the sport, his time on the mat had ended.
Wang suffered a devastating knee injury that day, tearing his anterior cruciate ligament, his medial collateral ligament, his lateral collateral ligament, and his meniscus. His opponent’s move was legal, Wang says in reflection, but his own knee, weakened by earlier injuries, just couldn’t stand up to it.