Ohio State player who said he quit football over increasing burnout and suicidal ideation cried on TV as he described juggling football, schoolwork, and death threats on Twitter

• The Ohio State football player Harry Miller retired from football over burnout and stress, he said.
• Miller said he engaged in self-harm because of the stress of balancing football and academics.

The former Ohio State football player Harry Miller cried during a television interview on "Today" Monday after opening up about the mental-health struggles he dealt with during his time as a college athlete.

The 21-year-old said the pressure of playing in one of the nation's top football programs, combined with staying on top of his academic assignments, caused him to become stressed and burned out.

"You play a game. It's a hard game, perhaps you made a lot of mistakes, and people send you a message saying, 'Transfer. You suck,'" Miller said. "Some people get death threats that I know on the team, and I'm trying to text my mom — that's the first thing I see. And then you can't worry about it too much because you've got an exam the next day."

Miller played offensive guard for Ohio State from 2019 to 2021 before announcing his retirement from football on March 10 in a tweet. In the post, he said his mental-health struggles were so severe that he told his coach he planned on taking his own life. He said he reported to his team's training camp this year with cut marks on his wrists and neck.

"I had no intention of this happening the way it did, and people call me brave," he said on "Today." "But to me, this felt like not dying, and I felt like being honest.

"And maybe bravery is just being honest when it would be easier not to, and if that's bravery, then so be it. But I've just been really grateful to, one, receive the help I have and then, two, to learn some things that I can share with others."

Miller said he had been dealing with mental-health struggles since he was a child and first told his mother that he wanted to kill himself when he was 8 years old. He said the pressure of playing football at Ohio State made things even more difficult over the past three years. But he added that quitting football had been a relief for him and a positive step toward improving his mental health.

He said he hoped that other people dealing with mental-health struggles could find hope and guidance from his message, especially other college athletes. His message came just nine days after the Stanford women's soccer star Katie Meyer died by suicide, which put a spotlight on the issue of mental-health struggles among college athletes in high-profile athletic programs.