It was just another Ohio State spring scrimmage inside Ohio Stadium on April 14, 2006. Tyson Gentry, who arrived in 2004 as a preferred walk-on punter, was getting ready to make plays in his changed role as a WR. Then came the tackle. Freshman DB Kurt Coleman brought him down in a routine play during the intra-squad scrimmage. But the result was life-altering.
Tyson Gentry suffered a cervical spinal cord injury at the C-4 level, breaking a vertebra and bruising his spinal cord. He instantly lost sensation and movement below his shoulders. Two surgeries followed at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center as doctors fixed his damaged vertebrae. And just like that, the football dream was replaced with the fight for life. Now, 20 years later, he refuses to let that moment defeat him.
In an article by Eleven Warriors’ Dan Hope, Tyson Gentry opened up on his journey nearly two decades later through his newly released autobiography, Once A Buckeye…: A Story of Football, Family and Faith. And if there’s one thing that stands out from his story, it’s not the tragedy but the gratitude…