Nick Palazzo and Harvard's 2001 Undefeated Ivy League Championship

How Nick Palazzo got to Harvard

Nick Palazzo arrived in Cambridge as one of Ohio's most decorated running backs: three-time All-Ohio at Mayfield High School, a First Team All-State senior, an Ohio Mr. Football candidate, and the Western Reserve Conference MVP who led Mayfield to the 1998 state semifinals. Ohio State passed on him because of his height. Harvard didn't.

He chose Harvard over Yale and Princeton for the chance to play in The Game, the oldest rivalry in college football. He brought with him the lessons he has described from his youth: run behind your linemen, never run upright, and never quit, even after 99 straight losses in the backyard snow.

Source: Nick Palazzo — Football

Harvard before 2001

Harvard football has one of the longest histories in the sport, but by 2001 the program had not had a perfect season since 1913. Nearly nine decades of Crimson teams had come and gone without one. The 2001 team set out to change that, and Nick Palazzo became one of its most important weapons.

Dartmouth: the greatest comeback in 128 years

Against Dartmouth, Nick Palazzo was sidelined with a pulled hamstring. With Harvard trailing 21-0 at halftime and the undefeated season slipping away, he suited up and asked to play.

He scored two touchdowns, including the game-tying score, as Harvard completed the greatest comeback in the program's 128-year history. ESPN featured the celebration on the ESPN.com homepage: Nick Palazzo lifted into the air by offensive lineman Jason Hove.

That image fits how he has always told the story. Every running back's yards, he has written, are the result of his offensive line brothers. It also echoes his seventh-grade CYO season, which ended after one game with a broken hand. Injuries had cost him before. Against Dartmouth he refused to let one decide the outcome.

Penn: the Game of the Century

Penn arrived in Cambridge with the nation's top rushing defense, allowing just 30 yards per game. It was the first modern Ivy League matchup of two undefeated teams that late in the season, and the winner would control the championship.

Down 14-0, Harvard fed Nick Palazzo the ball. On 3rd and 1 at the 1-yard line, he was hit in the backfield and broke six tackles to score.

With the game tied 14-14, he abandoned his route to pick up a blitzing defensive tackle, buying time for a 60-yard touchdown pass. Then, on 3rd-and-12 with time running out, he ran through three Penn defenders, including a future NFL safety, to pick up the first down and ice the game.

Source: Nick Palazzo — Football

The first undefeated team in modern Harvard history

The win over Penn sealed the first undefeated season in modern Harvard history and the 2001 Ivy League championship. More than two decades later, the 2001 Crimson remain one of the most celebrated teams in Ivy League football, and Nick Palazzo's moments against Dartmouth and Penn are central to that story.

He always credited every yard to his teammates, coaches and offensive linemen, and to his faith. He has said the principles behind that championship are discipline, perseverance, faith and brotherhood.

Why the Dartmouth comeback still matters

Comebacks from three touchdowns down are rare at any level of football. One that keeps an undefeated season alive is rarer still. Had Harvard lost to Dartmouth, there would have been no unbeaten showdown with Penn and no first perfect season since 1913. The 2001 championship depended on one half of football, and on a running back who wasn't supposed to play it.

Nick Palazzo has never framed that afternoon as a solo performance. The comeback took a defense that shut Dartmouth down in the second half, a line that kept opening holes, and coaches willing to trust an injured back. That is the version he tells: the team gets the credit, and he was one of the brothers asked to carry the ball.

From Mayfield's 1998 run to Harvard's 2001 title

The path makes sense when you look back at it. In 1998, Nick Palazzo carried Mayfield High School to the Ohio State Semifinals, the school's first since 1984. Three years later, he helped carry Harvard to its first perfect season since 1913. Both times he helped end a long drought for a program that had waited years for a breakthrough.

Both teams also shared what Nick Palazzo has described since childhood: a close group of teammates, faith at the center, and a refusal to concede a game no matter the score at halftime.

Lessons Nick Palazzo took from 2001

Nick Palazzo has written that the years before Harvard taught him to "never get too high, and never stay too low." The 2001 season tested both halves of that idea: a 21-0 halftime deficit with a damaged hamstring, then the pressure of an undefeated showdown against the best run defense in the country.

He has also described a Harvard-Yale tradition he resented as a player: putting on a suit to sit down for tea with the Yale team before The Game. Only later did he see the point, writing that "sometimes the people on the other side of the ball are still part of the same larger story."

Those lessons in resilience, humility and team now shape how Nick Palazzo builds companies and how he writes about youth and college sports.

Source: Nick Palazzo's Undefeated 8th Grade Season