Former Steelers player with a tragic story dies at 57
For a city so deeply rooted in basketball thanks to the Spurs being perennial NBA contenders, San Antonio has a pretty solid football pedigree as well.
Plenty of NFL notables in the past are either from the area or went to college there. One of them, Gabe “Señor Sack” Rivera, was poised in the early 1980s to inherit the mantle from “Mean” Joe Greene as the anchor of Pittsburgh’s four-time Super Bowl-winning “Steel Curtain” defense’s pass rush.
Rivera died Monday, reports KENS-TV in San Antonio. He was 57.
Rivera had spent the past 35 years as a paraplegic after getting into a car accident on Oct. 20, 1983, cutting short his rookie year with the Steelers.
Police said he was legally drunk when the vehicle he was driving crossed the centerline and slammed into an oncoming vehicle.
Rivera was not wearing a seat belt. He was thrown from his car and injured so badly that he never walked again. The other driver was not seriously injured in the crash.
Rivera spent his college career at Texas Tech, where he tore up the college ranks, terrorizing opposing quarterbacks and having no more problem with opposing offensive lineman as a paying subway customer in New York has with a turnstile.
For his performance as a student athlete, Rivera was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2012 and Texas Tech’s Ring of Honor in 2014, He was also the Southwest Conference Defensive Player of the Year in his senior season and made the All-Decade team for that forerunner to the Big XII in the 1980s.
Today, we mourn the passing of Red Raider legend and @TexasTechFB Ring of Honor member, Gabe Rivera. #WreckEm pic.twitter.com/0PdZ0kZe0R
— Texas Tech Red Raiders (@TechAthletics) July 17, 2018
Rivera, when he was honored for his play in his younger days, was overjoyed.
“It’s very special,” he said. “When I was a youngster, I knew Alamo Stadium was the place to go play. I always thought of Alamo Stadium as the Rockpile, and now I’m going to be part of it forever when my plaque is put up there with the others. Fans and kids will come out here and see it. It’s a tremendous, awesome feeling.”
He was drafted in the first round in 1983 by a Pittsburgh team that was seeing the retirement of its defensive legends. Rivera compiled two sacks in the six games he played in before the accident.
The injuries Rivera suffered in the 1983 accident contributed to his death. Late last week, he suffered a perforated bowel, and doctors determined Rivera was not healthy enough to survive an operation.
Monday morning, his wife Nancy confirmed his condition to media.
“He has a perforated bowel, a perforated colon, and doctors can’t perform surgery because he has no stomach muscle,” she said. “He’s getting ready to go into hospice care.”
Just a few hours later, the end came.
“Gabriel went home to the Lord at 9:25,” Nancy said.
Rivera remained a fan of the Red Raiders and Steelers for his whole life. His passing leaves a void in the community for both teams and for the city in which he lived.
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