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What: “Real Sports With Bryant Gumbel”

Where: HBO, tonight, 10

The featured segment in tonight’s edition of “Real Sports” may be the most powerful in the eight-year history of the show. Esera Tuaolo, 34, a powerful 300-pound former defensive end who played nine seasons in the NFL, announces that he is gay.

But this is about more than an ex-football player coming out of the closet. This is about how homosexuality is viewed in professional sports and the extent to which Tuaolo went to keep his secret.

Tuaolo and a film producer went to HBO with his story, initially hoping the pay-cable network would want to do a full-blown documentary. HBO executives suggested a “Real Sports” segment instead. Maybe HBO should have done a documentary. Tuaolo has quite a tale to tell.

Tuaolo, who is from Hawaii and was a second-round draft pick from Oregon State, played for Green Bay, Minnesota, Jacksonville, Atlanta and Carolina. He tells reporter Bernard Goldberg his main fear of being found out was that he would be hurt intentionally -- by his own teammates. And Sterling Sharpe, a teammate at Green Bay, backs that up.

“Had he come out on a Monday, with Wednesday, Thursday, Friday practices, he’d have never gotten to the game on Sunday,” Sharpe says.

Sharpe also says, “He would have been eaten alive and he would have been hated for it.”

Also interviewed were Craig Sauer, a teammate in Atlanta who had to come to terms with his friend’s sexuality, and Tuaolo’s partner, Mitchell Wherley, who runs a beauty salon. Tuaolo and Wherley have adopted 2-year-old twin girls. Tuaolo says he wanted to come out so he could be happy: “I’ve taken off this costume I’ve been wearing all my life.”

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--Larry Stewart