Athletes of all ages say all kinds of wild things on Twitter that make headlines.
It’s the digital age in which we live. Every now and then, these snarky quips and social-media pronouncements are actually newsworthy.
But that painful and haunting letter that Ohio State offensive lineman Harry Miller posted on Twitter was something else altogether. It was an appeal for public awareness of box-cutter scars and mental health issues that, far too often, can be hidden with muscles, bandages and layers of athletic gear. Here is the top of a Bleacher Report story — “Ohio State OL Harry Miller Retires From Football; Details Mental Health Struggles” — about this 5-star level football prospect:
Ohio State offensive lineman Harry Miller announced his medical retirement from football. … In a message posted to Twitter, Miller said that he had suicidal thoughts and went to Ohio State head coach Ryan Day to seek help.
"Prior to the season last year, I told Coach Day of my intention to kill myself," Miller wrote. "He immediately had me in touch with Dr. Candice [Williams] and Dr. [Joshua] Norman, and I received the support I needed."
Miller played for Ohio State from 2019-21. He was named an OSU Scholar-Athlete in 2019 and 2020. Miller also started seven games at left guard for the 2020 team, which won the Big Ten and the Sugar Bowl. He played two games in 2021. OSU recruited Miller, a 5-star recruit, out of Buford High School in Georgia.
"A person like me, who supposedly has the entire world in front of them, can be fully prepared to give up the world entire," Miller wrote. "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."
Miller is an unusual young man for several reasons. A long-time GetReligion reader (a professional writer with decades of experience) put it this way in an email to me this weekend:
He is straight A student in engineering and got a 1600 on the SAT. His mom was physically abused by her first husband and abandoned by Miller's father.
Yet, he has lived for others while becoming a five-star recruit. Now, the guts to do this.
So many religion ghosts, so little time.
Oh, there was one other detail that my friend mentioned that was included, with no background information, by Bleacher Report.
This past fall, Miller was named to the Allstate AFCA Good Works Team for his volunteer work with and on behalf of a group called “Mission for Nicaragua,” which was described as a “non-profit organization that operates a school and provides food, medicine and other resources for underprivileged families in Los Brasiles, Nicaragua."
Actually, this Atlanta-based group is quite clear why it combines relief work with missionary efforts to help support and build churches. A note from its website:
Mission For Nicaragua coordinates and plans multiple trips during the summer where missionaries engage in food distribution, infrastructure repair, and other projects that build and improve upon places of worship and learning. At Mission For Nicaragua, our mission is simple: GO!
This young man’s connection to this non-profit group has received some attention in the past. One report in the Columbus Dispatch even made a fleeting reference to a “church group” in Miller’s past:
When Ohio State offensive lineman Harry Miller was in middle school, he took a mission trip to Nicaragua with a church group from suburban Atlanta.
It left a lasting impression. Getting a glimpse of the country’s extreme poverty, he was inspired to return and provide further aid.
“As a kid in America, you don't really appreciate how good it is until you go someplace else and you see plastic houses made of scrap cardboard and wood and tin and plastic sheeting that are basically one room with dirt floors and maybe a bed, maybe not,” said his mother, Kristina, who accompanied him.
Over the past seven years, Miller has traveled nearly a dozen times to Nicaragua on similar trips.
Miller has remained active in this mission efforts. While many athletes have, under revised NCAA rules, used “Name, Image and Likeness” projects to earn pocket money or even serious wealth, Miller immediately focused his efforts on raising funds for these mission and relief projects in Nicaragua.
OK, I will ask the obvious question: What role does Miller’s faith play in his personal struggles? Has his church played some role in his attempts to find peace?
Obviously, there are several major themes that need to be addressed in coverage of Miller’s remarkable appeal for public awareness of the potentially deadly mental-health issues in his life. This is a brilliant young man who certainly appears to have the potential to play in the National Football League. Yet his life has also been haunted by the domestic violence that framed his childhood and shattered his family.
An Associated Press report about the Twitter statement made this interesting observation about Miller’s relationship with the press:
Miller was a straight-A student and valedictorian of his high school class. He had become a favorite of reporters covering the Buckeyes because of interviews that often touched on subjects ranging from classic literature to philosophy.
Philosophy? Or maybe Miller was discussing theology?
Based on the mainstream reports I have scanned, it certainly appears that reporters have, for whatever reason, chosen to overlook the following lines in Miller’s letter on Twitter:
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. …
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.
These quotations were included in a post at a religion-news website called Aleteia, which has Catholic roots.
Once again, we face a familiar GetReligion question: Why do many journalists, and not just sports-desk professionals, seem determined to avoid faith-based questions, especially when they are openly addressed by the person at the center of the story?
What is the journalism logic here? What’s the point?
FIRST IMAGE: Personal photo posted at Buckeyes Wire website.