Ohio State offensive lineman Harry Miller retires after struggles with mental health
Ohio State offensive lineman Harry Miller is hanging up his cleats. He is retiring to take better care of his mental health. His statement was very real.
“I would not usually share such information,” his Twitter statement began. “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 Day of my intention to kill myself,” he wrote.
Miller wrote that he got help and eventually returned to football “with scars on my wrists and throat.” He said those scars may have been hard to see when the team played or when he was interviewed.
“There was a dead man on the television set, but nobody knew it,” he wrote.
“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 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.”
This will hurt the Buckeyes, but it sounds like Harry could use a break away from football to work on himself.
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