Ryan O'Callaghan, a former offensive tackle for the New England Patriots and Kansas City Chiefs, has come out as gay in a new interview with Outsports.

O’Callaghan, 34, grew up in Redding, California, where, he says, homosexuality was not accepted. “If you’re a gay kid and you hear someone you love say ‘fag,’ it makes you think that in their eyes you’re just a fag, too,” he said. “That got to me a lot.”

In fact, he confesses, he planned to commit suicide once his NFL career was over.

O'Callaghan's started playing football in high school, coinciding with his awareness of his sexuality. The sport would be the closet he would hide in: After playing in high school, he enrolled at UC Berkeley on a football scholarship before being signed to the Patriots in 2006.

At 6'7" and 330 pounds, he figured he was safe from suspicion—though he'd mention a "girl back home" on the occasions anyone asked about his personal life.

“No one is going to assume the big football player is gay. It’s why a football team is such a good place to hide." But when football was over, he decided, he'd put a gun to his head. After an injury in the 2008 preseason, he was put on the reserve list and let go by the Patriots the following year. He was snatched up by the Chiefs, but a subsequent groin injury sidelined him permanently in 2011.

With so much down time, thoughts of suicide returned, coupled by an addiction to Vicodin, which he had been prescribed for his injuries. “It helped with the pain of the injuries, and with the pain of being gay," he confesses. "I just didn’t worry about being gay when I took the Vicodin. I just didn’t worry.”

He became distant toward friends and family, and spent $70,000 to buy a remote cabin where he intended to take his life. “I started spending all my money to put myself in a position where it would be impossible, or at least extremely difficult, to back out of killing myself.”

But O'Callaghan was still going to the Chiefs training facility for physical therapy—a trainer noticed his increasingly erratic behavior and recommended a counselor. After months of sessions, he finally opened up about what was fueling his self-destructive behavior and suicidal ideation.

Eventually she convinced the former pro to at least come out to a few close people before taking his life, if only to make sure it was the end-of-the-world situation he was sure it would be.

“Was it great at the beginning?” O’Callaghan recalls of the coming-out process. “No. Did everyone totally understand what it meant to be gay? No. But they knew what my alternative was. I told people close to me that I planned on killing myself. So at that point, no one cared. They were just happy that I was alive.”

Now back in Redding, O’Callaghan's NFL dreams are behind him—but he's living his truth. He's dating, and recently attended his first L.A. Pride.

“People need to understand that we are everywhere. We’re your sons, your daughters, your teammates, your neighbors. And honestly, even some of your husbands and wives. You just don’t know it yet," he says.

And our sport heroes, too.