"Making fun of me that I didn't have a father and that ended up in a fistfight" - When Ryan Day shared how he channeled childhood loss into success

Ohio State coach Ryan Day had a rollercoaster season from losing to the Michigan Wolverines to winning the national championship. Off the gridiron, the Buckeyes coach had to overcome personal hurdles in his childhood, after his father, Raymond Day, committed suicide when Ryan was eight years old.

During a 2022 interview with "S&S Sports Entertainment," Ryan Day discussed the challenges he faced:

"He (Raymond) liked baseball and I remember him pitching to us when we were little, I remember running on the beach with him," Day said. "He worked at a convenience store, he was on his way to work and the next day he was gone.

"We didn't talk about it really growing up. You know somebody made a comment to me, like making fun of me that I didn't have a father and that ended up in a fistfight, that was it." (2:00)

Day continued, reflecting on how the loss affected him and also gave him extra motivation on the field:

"I kind of had that edge, I would see somebody run up to their dad and hug them after the game and that was where the chip came from. It was like, 'Okay, you get a dad but I'm gonna beat you on the field.'

"You have your sadness, your anger, your guilt, you have resentment and then as you get older you start to recognize that maybe he was sick."

After he was appointed the Buckeyes head coach, Day publicly spoke about his father's suicide during a news conference. He then launched the 'Christina and Ryan Day Fund for Pediatric and Adolescent Mental Wellness' to help kids deal with mental health issues.

"Growing up, I didn't quite understand what all went down but then as I got older I started to realize that it was a sickness and that there's people out there that need help and that there's a stigma attached to it that I don't think is right," Day said. "It's a stigma that maybe even as a young person I bought into."

Ryan Day received death threats after Buckeyes lost to Wolverines

In November, Ryan Day's Ohio State Buckeyes lost 13-10 to their bitter rivals, the Michigan Wolverines, after entering the game as 20-point favorites. Day was hounded by Buckeyes fans after the loss and widely criticized by analysts too.

Winning the national championship might have made him a hero in Columbus but the Michigan loss came with death threats aimed at Day and his family. As such, the Buckeyes coach hired security for his home.

This week, Nina Day, the Buckeyes' coach's wife, revealed how dark things got for the family when speaking to The Columbus Dispatch:

“It’s been a roller coaster, to say the least,” Nina Day said. “The time between the Michigan game and the Tennessee game was as low and dark as you could possibly imagine. Extremely negative. Unprecedented hate. They told me multiple times to have Ryan follow in his father’s footsteps and kill himself."

The severity of the situation facing Ryan Day and his family was mentioned after the national championship game. ESPN analyst Kirk Herbstreit noted that it was an open secret in college football just how badly the Day family had been treated after the Michigan loss.