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. 

The memoir had actually been sitting unfinished for more than a decade. Tyson Gentry began writing it in 2014 and completed roughly three-quarters of the manuscript. Then he stopped. The reason?

“At the time, I wasn’t a dad. At that point, I was married for about a year,” he told Eleven Warriors. “So I realized that I still had plenty of life to live, and it’s kind of hard to write an autobiography/memoir without knowing how it’s going to end. So I shelved it and really didn’t think about it for a while.”

Then, Tyson Gentry lived it. And as the 20th anniversary of his injury approached, he finally found the ending he had been searching for. Writing the book forced him to recall both the highs and lows. The walk-on struggles, the pressure of trying to earn respect among scholarship players, and the emotional collapse that followed his injury.

“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. So it’s only human to struggle when you experience a life-changing event, and that at the end of the day, God is always good and that good can come from it.”

The darkest chapter came right after the injury. Following his surgery, Tyson Gentry was overwhelmed by pain, and the suffering became so intense that he wished his life would end.

“When I reached my lowest point, and I was ready to give up, I honestly thought I was going to die,” he recalled. “Just the amount of pain that I was in, I was ready to go, I was at peace with everything.”

The next morning, his parents showed him an inspirational note that read, “Never give up, no matter how much adversity you face.”

What made the note stand out was that Tyson had written it months before his injury. At that time, a woman with a spinal cord injury had spoken to the Ohio State football team, and the players were asked to write letters of encouragement to patients at Dodd Hall. He never imagined that one day he’d be encouraging himself with his own words. 

“And I woke up the next morning and realized that it’s not the end of the road, and so just from that standpoint onward, my faith has increased,” he added. 

For Tyson Gentry, it felt like divine intervention. And that realization became the foundation of everything that followed in the life he built after football. 

Tyson Gentry survived tragedy to create purpose

Today, Tyson Gentry remains a quadriplegic. While he regained some use of his biceps, he still cannot walk or move his fingers or wrists. Yet his life is fuller than the frightened young man in that hospital bed ever imagined. And the biggest reason is his family. Three years after his injury, he met fellow Ohio State student Megan Vanderhorst. They fell in love, married, and built a family together. Today, they are raising their sons, Adam and Ryan.

“My wife is my angel,” he told Eleven Warriors. “She makes things so much easier on me and helps me carry a lot of the burdens that come with my injury. So having her by my side is amazing. And then to watch our two sons, who are 10 and 8 now, grow up and to kind of show them so many things that they wouldn’t otherwise be exposed to.”

Tyson Gentry has often said he would still choose Ohio State football again, even knowing exactly how the story unfolds. That’s a surprising statement until he explains why. Without football, he’d never have met Megan. And without the injury, he’d never have had the life he treasures today.

“Megan has made all the negative side effects of my injury bearable,” he previously told Ohio State Alumni Magazine. “She’s a major part of why I’m thankful for my injury. If not for my injury, I wouldn’t have her, and we wouldn’t have our boys.”

The gratitude extends beyond his family. In 2014, Tyson and Megan launched the New Perspective Foundation, helping families affected by spinal cord injuries. The organization provides financial assistance to families traveling long distances to support loved ones during rehabilitation. It’s a mission born directly from his own experience. He knows firsthand how vital family support can be.