Ohio State OL Harry Miller medically retires, details how he attempted suicide
Editor's note: If you or someone you know is having thoughts of suicide, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is available 24 hours a day at 1-800-273-8255.
Ohio State offensive lineman Harry Miller said Thursday that he was medically retiring from football.
In a lengthy social media post, Miller said that he had gone to Buckeyes coach Ryan Day before the 2021 season and said that he wanted to kill himself. Miller, who said he was sharing his story because he was a football player, said that Day helped provide him with the counseling and support he needed to keep going and persevere through life.
— Harry Miller (@h_miller76) March 10, 2022
“Prior to the season last year, I told Coach Day of my intention to kill myself. 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.
"At the time, I would rather be dead than a coward. I’d rather be nothing at all than have to explain everything that was wrong. I was planning on being reduced to my initials on a sticker on a back of a helmet. I had seen people seek help before. I had seen the age-old adage of how our generation was softening by the second, but I can tell you my skin was tough. It had to be. But it was not tougher than the sharp metal of my box cutter. And I saw how easy it was for people to dismiss others by talking about how they were just a dumb college kid who didn’t know anything. But luckily I am a student in the College of Engineering and I have a 4.0 and whatever accolades you might require, so maybe if somebody’s hurt can be taken seriously for once, it can be mine. And maybe I can vouch for all the other people who hurt but are not taken seriously because, for some reason, pain must have pre-requisites."
You can read Miller's gut-wrenching post in full here. He praised the infrastructure at Ohio State that allowed him to get help and said that he was grateful to Day for allowing him to be able to help others in the football program who may need mental health assistance.
Miller, a junior in 2021, played in two games last fall after starting seven games as the team's left guard in 2020. He was a backup center as a true freshman in 2019 and a multiple-time scholar-athlete. The Buford, Georgia, native was a four-star recruit in the class of 2019 and the No. 2 guard in the country according to Rivals.
Miller's public revelations come a week after the death of Stanford soccer goalkeeper Katie Meyer. She was found dead by suicide on March 1.
