Ohio State offensive lineman Harry Miller announced Thursday that he’s medically retiring from the sport of football. Miller went into great detail in a statement posted to Twitter about his mental health, citing it as the reason he’s stepping away from the game. In the statement, Miller shared that, before the 2021 season, he told Ohio State coach Ryan Day about his desire to commit suicide.
“Prior to the season last year, I told Coach Day of my intention to kill myself,” wrote Miller. “He immediately had me in touch with Dr. Candice and Dr. Norman, and I received the support I needed. After a few weeks, I tried my luck at football once again, with scars on my wrists and throat. Maybe the scars were hard to see with my wrists taped up. Maybe it was hard to see the scars through the bright colors of the television. Maybe the scars were hard to hear through all the talk shows and interviews. They are hard to see, and they are easy to hide, but they sure do hurt. There was a dead man on the television set, but nobody knew it.
“I am grateful for the infrastructure Coach Day has put in place at Ohio State, and I am grateful that he is letting me find a new way to help others in the program,” Miller continued. “I hope athletic departments around the country do the same. If not for him and the staff, my words would not be a reflection. They would be evidence in a post-mortem. God bless those who love. God bless those who weep. And God bless those who hurt and only know how to share their hurt by anger, for they are learning to love with me. I am okay.”
Miller was a five-star prospect out of Georgia in the 2019 class and started seven games for the Buckeyes during the 2020 season, but was forced to miss the team’s Sugar Bowl victory over Clemson due to a positive COVID test. He appeared in only one game during the 2021 season and was ruled out in November for the rest of the year with a leg injury.
Ryan Day and his wife, Christina, have long been advocates of mental health awareness in adolescents and young children. The couple created The Ryan and Christina Day Fund for Pediatric and Adolescent Mental Wellness at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio.
