Keller @ Large: Ryan O'Callaghan's Story Is A Lesson For All Of Us

BOSTON (CBS) - If you only have time to read one long feature article this week, make it the piece on Outsports.com about former New England Patriot Ryan O'Callaghan, a 6'7" 330-pound lineman who had a carefully-guarded secret all his life – he was gay.

It documents how the start of his understanding of his own sexuality in junior high school touched off years of anguish, where "every utterance of a gay slur or a joke about gay men… was like a knife to the gut."

For O'Callaghan, football was a perfect hiding place. No one would suspect a big, beefy jock of being gay, he figured.

He became a star in high school and college, where he played alongside Aaron Rodgers, now a big star with the Green Bay Packers.

And with the Patriots, he found a place where no one cared about anything but winning, solace of sorts, but still a place where heterosexuality was assumed.

And all along, O'Callaghan had a plan – when his charade was over and his football days were done, he would retreat to a cabin he built and take his own life.

Eventually, O'Callaghan confided in a drug abuse counselor, and disaster was averted. He came out to friends, family and bosses, and all were supportive.

"Being gay wasn't just a small detail in my life, it consumed it," he says. "It's all I would think about. But now that I have come out it rarely crosses my mind."

What a story.

And it raises a question for all of us to consider – do we want to live in a world where someone like this is consumed with fear, or one where neither he nor anyone else gives his sexuality a second thought?

I know what I'd choose.

How about you?