Ohio State Offensive Lineman Harry Miller Medically Retiring From Football

The redshirt junior has decided to step away from the game due to challenges he faced both on and off the field.

Author:
Andrew Lind
Mar 10, 2022 3:32 PM EST

Ohio State redshirt junior offensive lineman Harry Miller announced on Thursday afternoon he is medically retiring from football, citing his mental health, which almost caused him to commit suicide last summer.

“I would not usually share such information,” Miller said in a statement. “However, because I have played football, I am no longer afforded the privilege of privacy, so I will share my story briefly before more articles continue to ask, ‘What is wrong with Harry Miller?’ That is a good question. It is a good enough question for me not to know the answer, though I have asked it often.

“Prior to the season last year, I told Coach (Ryan) Day of my intention to kill myself. He immediately had me in touch with Dr. Candice (Williams) and Dr. (Joshua) 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 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 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.

"A person like me, who supposedly has the entire world in front of them, can be fully prepared to give up the world entire. This is not an issue reserved for the far and away. It is in our homes. It is in our conversations. It is in the people we love.

“I am not angry. I had to lose my anger because I did not know if God would forgive me if I went to him in anger. I did not know how the Host of Hosts would respond to my untimely arrival, and I did not want to tempt him. So in my sadness, I lost my anger and learned many things. I learned what color blood is through the tears in my eyes. I learned that the human ear can not distinguish between the two when their drops hit a tiled floor. But above all, I learned love, the type of love that can only be pieced together by the mechanism of brutal sadness.

"And so I will love more than I can be hated or laughed at, for I know the people who are sneering need out the love that I was looking for. The cost of apathy is life, but the price of life is as small as an act of kindness. I am a life preserved by the kindness that was offered to me by others when I could not produce kindness for myself.

“We ask ‘How could this have happened?’ But that single question can not absolve us of all the questions we might have asked while it was happening. 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. 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.”

A former five-star prospect from Buford, Ga., Miller started six games at left guard and one game at center for the Buckeyes in 2020. He was expected to slide over to center on a full-time basis last season, but missed the first four games with what Day described at the time as “health issues.”

Miller returned to the team midway through the season, but suffered a season-ending knee injury in the win over Maryland on Oct. 9. He ultimately played in 20 games during his three-year career at Ohio State.

Off the field, Miller – who mentioned his academic credentials above – was named to the Allstate AFCA Good Works Team for his philanthropic efforts in Nicaragua, where his mission helps operate a school and distributes food and medicine to less-fortunate families in the town of Los Brasiles.

Miller also announced he was donating all of his name, image and likeness earnings to humanitarian efforts in the Central American country. That includes the proceeds from an online pop-up shop he started last summer, which sold shirts, sweatshirts and baseball hats with his personal logo.

Miller and junior offensive tackle Paris Johnson Jr. also recently announced they were teaming up to raise money for 100 beds that will be distributed to children in Nicaragua, with each bed allowing two children to sleep in a bed rather than on the ground at night.

For those needing help, the number for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255.

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