Ohio State Buckeyes: E.J. Liddell speaks out on social media threats

“I just wanted to use my voice a little bit,” the sophomore told reporters on a video call Wednesday morning. “I’ve been kind of quiet about it because I have pretty tough skin when it comes to criticism, but that wasn’t constructive criticism. It was just brutal and hardcore and it just didn’t sit right with me because people can make anonymous pages all the time, and text us. They have zero followers, zero posts and can just text anybody they want but I just felt like it needs to stop.”

A four-star recruit from Illinois, he said he first started getting nasty feedback during his senior season of at Belleville West High School.

“If I wouldn’t have the best game people, from rival schools would text me, ‘You suck, you’re a terrible person,’ just things like that,” Liddell said. “I just shook them off really because I don’t want to be looked at as soft. I just had tough skin for a while when it came to things like that.”

His weekend post, which included physical threats, went viral quickly as many rushed to condemn the threats.

Many other college and pro athletes have come to his side to say they go through the same thing, including D’Mitrik Trice, a Wayne High School graduate who was an All-Big Ten point guard at Wisconsin this past season.

“The outside world will never understand the things we get in our (direct messages) from ‘fans’,” Trice wrote on Twitter when he shared Liddell’s post. “Hold your head high and know who you are in God’s eyes. That’s what matters!”

Ohio State director of athletics Gene Smith quickly came to Liddell’s defense over the weekend, posting a message of support and saying legal action could be taken against anyone who issues threats to players.

“The vast majority of Buckeye fans recognize that no one is more disappointed in our unexpected early departure from the NCAA Tournament than our coaches and players,” Smith said in a statement. “They put in all the work and sacrificed considerable freedoms, especially during the COVID pandemic.

“To all of you who have reached out with compassion, I thank you. The threatening social media attack E.J. Liddell faced after the game is appalling and will not be tolerated. To the few of you who have chosen to inappropriately rail against our players on social media, stop. Hate and derision have no place in Buckeye Nation or civil society. If you cross the line and threaten our players, you will be hearing from the authorities. That I promise you.”

On Wednesday, Liddell sounded less concerned about the legal aspect of the situation than the moral side of it.

“A lot of athletes are supposed to be looked at as just like entertainers really, and we’re supposed to be like, tough always and show people that things don’t get to us,” Liddell said. “Well, sometimes it really does. I know some athletes take it different than me, and I just look at as my family. I have a little brother, a little sister, mom, dad, big sister, and a whole bunch of other family that supports me, and I definitely wouldn’t want them to be talked about like that or talked to like that, and I don’t want anybody in my family to talk to people like that, so I just want to be treated how a person wants to be treated.”

Asked what he would say to the people threatening him if he had the chance to confront them in person, he had a simple reply.

“I would just ask them why you felt like it was okay to say something to another human like that,” Liddell said. “Just the fact that they think so bad about a person and feel so bad about a person to say things like that.”

The sacrifices he and his teammates made to be able to play this season, including regularly being tested for COVID-19 and more or less quarantining themselves other than for basketball and school, also played a role in Liddell’s decision to go public this time with the messages he received.

“I just felt like it was time to say something, and a lot of other athletes also felt the same way,” he said. “They get comments like that all the time, so I would rather people see us as humans and pick us up because we sacrificed so much for this season specifically. We really lost all our social lives during the season.”

He also noted the majority of the feedback he gets from fans is positive and said this episode did not sour him on the offseason after a year that he was a breakthrough performer for a top 10 team.

“It’s mostly like 98% all positive, but there’s always that 2% that comes at you pretty, pretty rough,” he said. “Sometimes fans get too high or too low, honestly, and get into their emotions, but basically most of the time it’s all Buckeye fans being positive.”

As for his basketball future, Liddell said he has not decided if he will go pro or even test the NBA Draft waters with the intention of likely returning.

The latter is growing more common as players are able to go through the pre-draft process to be evaluated and get a sense of what their stock might be even if they are leaning toward staying in school, but the ongoing pandemic has complicated the evaluation process and may make getting useful information more difficult.

Including Liddell, most of the Buckeyes’ core can return next season, and the roster figures to get a big boost from incoming freshman Malaki Branham, a four-star recruit from Akron St. Vincent-St. Mary.

“If everybody puts in the work they need on offseason it’s going to be pretty hard to beat us,” Liddell said. “I saw Malaki had 37 in the state championship game. That was pretty cool. Congrats to him. I feel like the young guys coming in can be a big help and (freshman point guard) Meechie Johnson used this year to learn a lot from (outgoing senior CJ Walker) and did a good job for us so I feel like we can be pretty good.”