Former Ohio State football player Harry Miller to be guest at State of the Union

Miller was expected to be Ohio State’s center of the future when he signed as a five-star prospect from Buford, Ga., in 2019.

He started at guard in 2020 before missing much of the ‘21 season with multiple injuries but later revealed he was also dealing with mental health issues, including suicidal thoughts.

“I would not usually share such information,” Miller wrote in a lengthy statement posted to social media last March. “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.”

He credited Ohio State coach Ryan Day and the support staff at OSU with putting in place the infrastructure to help him, but Day praised him for the courage to seek help and then use his platform to help others.

“I try not to make it about me,” said Day, who lost his father to suicide at a young age and has made youth mental health an important issue since taking over the program in 2019. “It’s about Harry, and this is about his journey. I just see the courage to go step out and do that because you’re very vulnerable when you do something like this.

“You’re a football player, and somebody who’s 6-5, 320 pounds and valedictorian of his high school, you think everything’s real easy. It’s not that way. There’s a lot that goes with that, and so to see him do that has been great.”