Pittsburgh Steelers CB William Gay continues his fight against domestic violence

News throughout the NFL is fast and furious. News breaks, people analyze and debate and then it is seemingly gone. The bigger the news, the longer it lingers, but in today's NFL it doesn't last forever.

Aaron Hernandez's guilty verdict and being sentenced to life in prison has been replaced by the 2015 NFL Draft and which organization might select which prospect.

Ray Rice's issues off the field in 2014 have long been replaced by NFL prospects getting caught for smoking marijuana, failed drug tests and citations for possession of the drug. Like it or not, it is the modern day NFL...the ball keeps rolling.

So when Rice's situation - and others - last season brought attention to domestic violence, Pittsburgh Steelers' cornerback William Gay saw it as a platform to tell his story, and he continues to do so even though the topic has long since been forgotten by many who follow NFL news.

Gay recently was featured in an article for People magazine, and was extremely candid in regards to his story of how at the age of 7-years-old he lost his mother to domestic violence as his step father shot her and then himself, leaving Gay to fend for himself. Being raised by his grandmother, things weren't looking good for Gay as an adolescent.

"Up until I was 12-years-old, I was going down the wrong path," Gay tells People. "When you lose a parent at a young age, you kind of lose direction."

"I didn't know which way to go. I started seeing evil and thinking the world was against me, so I didn't really trust anybody, and I didn't really care for anybody," he says.

"Football took me away from all the evil and helped me grow into a man."

It is football where Gay is using his platform to try and help others. Gay has partnered with Verizon to create the HopeLine Program which will help give people suffering from domestic violence a voice by collecting and donating cell phones to shelters and people suffering from domestic abuse.

"It sounds so simple, but it allows victims and survivors to connect with loved ones with a private line or simply have a way to communicate with a hotline," Gay says.

On top of his work on the football field, and off, Gay was a part of this powerful commercial which helps highlight his story and hopefully help others in the process.