Tyson Gentry was a walk-on wide receiver at Ohio State Buckeyes under then head coach, Jim Tressel, when a spring scrimmage on April 14, 2006, changed everything. A hit at Ohio Stadium left him with a spinal cord injury that paralyzed him from the neck down.

He eventually regained use of his biceps, but still cannot walk or move his fingers or wrists. Twenty years later, he sat down with Eleven Warriors on May 28 and did not hold back about how close he came to losing the will to go on.

"When I reached my lowest point, and I was ready to give up, I honestly thought I was going to die," Gentry told Eleven Warriors. "Just the amount of pain that I was in, I was ready to go. And I woke up the next morning and realized that it's not the end of the road."

After fusion surgery three days after the injury, the pain pushed him somewhere he never expected to be. However, what pulled him back was something he had written himself.

Eight months before his injury, the Ohio State team was asked to write letters of encouragement for spinal cord injury patients at Dodd Hall. Gentry wrote one. The morning after facing one of his biggest setbacks, his parents handed that same note back to him. He took it as a sign.

“So I think once I kind of realized like, ‘Hey, if this is what I have to work with moving forward, all I can do is make the best of it,'" he shared. "Because the only alternative is to sit there and feel sorry for myself and spiral downward, and I didn't want that.”

Today, he is married to his wife, Megan, and runs the New Perspective Foundation, supporting others with spinal cord injuries. He gave his sons the middle names Cole and James, in honor of Kurt Coleman and Jim Tressel.

That perspective did not come quickly. Tressel visited him in the hospital after the injury and never really left his side after that, becoming a lifelong mentor through everything that followed.

It took that kind of support, combined with his own faith, to reach a place where he could build something meaningful from what happened. His new book is where all of that finally comes together.

How "Once A Buckeye" Became Tyson Gentry's Way of Giving That Story Back

Gentry started writing his memoir back in 2014, but shelved it because, as he put it, he still had plenty of life left to live. The 20th anniversary of his injury felt like the right time to finish it.

"Basically, through it all, the gist of my story is that a lot of good can come from bad situations," Gentry said. "As much as I thought my life was over at the time because everything that I knew and identified with was gone in a second, a lot of good has come from it."

His book Once A Buckeye...: A Story of Football, Family and Faith was published this week. For Gentry, the toughest challenge of his life began after football, and he spoke openly and honestly through his book.

“I tried to be as honest and, at times, raw as possible,” he said. “Just the honesty of what I went through after my injury to let people know that even if you’re a tough, strong athlete, that even we struggle and break down and have times of weakness too."

After two decades of reflection, Gentry finally put his story into words in a book published on May 15.

What do you think of Tyson Gentry's journey and his determination? Let us know in the comments.

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Written by

Farheen Fathima

Edited by

Soheli Tarafdar