It has been an emotional week for NBA big man Jason Collins. On April 29 he publicly stepped forward with the announcement that he was gay, becoming the first active modern player in a major league sport to do so.

What is perhaps most interesting about Collins' story is the path that he had to go down in order to get to that point. A path that, surprisingly, involved a bride-to-be who had no idea about her husband's sexual orientation.

Meet Carolyn Moos. She was an accomplished collegiate basketball player at Stanford (Collins' alma mater) who made it to the WNBA before eventually starting up her own personal fitness company. Moos also became Collins' fiance before he decided to call it quits in 2009.

Collins' former fiance said she was concerned when he called her a few days ago and said they really needed to talk . She sat down with "Access Hollywood" and described how she had no idea what he was about to lay on her.

"I have something very important to tell you I need you to sit down," she said. "This is something that I've been discovering for a very long time and I've also supressed for a very long time."

Needless to say, Collins' admission that he was homosexual, and consequently that their whole relationship was a lie, was not an easy pill to swallow. Moos says she understands his actions based on the current climate in sports, but it was still not easy to hear.

"It's very emotional for me as a woman to have invested 8 years in my dream to have a husband, soul mate, and best friend in him. So this is all hard to understand. [But] I care about him tremendously and only want the best for him. I want Jason to be happy for a lifetime and stay true to who he really is, inside and out."

In the end however, Moos has come to terms with this information and has openly supported his decision to come out of the closet.

"I care about (Jason) tremendously and only want the best for him. I want Jason to be happy for a lifetime and stay true to who he really is, inside and out."

In an interesting aside, it should also be noted that Jason Collins is not the first major league sports player to be out of the closet, as has been popularly reported. That little-known distinction goes to 70's Dodger Glenn Burke. It was a known fact among his teammates that Burke was gay, and had he played during the internet age, such information would've surely been public knowledge.