No. 1 Steelers pick paralyzed in crash
Former Steelers defensive lineman Gabe Rivera, whose career was cut short after an auto accident paralyzed him in 1983, died Monday night in Texas. He was 57.
According to KENS 5, a CBS affiliate in San Antonio, Mr. Rivera became ill Friday night and was taken to the hospital. Doctors diagnosed him with a perforated bowel and perforated colon and told his wife, Nancy, they could not operate because he wouldn’t have been able to withstand an operation.
Mr. Rivera, known as “Señor Sack” during his standout college career at Texas Tech, was the No. 21 overall selection in the 1983 draft. The Steelers could have selected hometown quarterback Dan Marino with their pick in the first round. He was the favorite of owner Art Rooney.
But head coach Chuck Noll envisioned building his defense around Mr. Rivera much in the same way he built his Super Bowl teams of the 1970s around “Mean” Joe Greene, when he was the first-round pick in the 1969 draft.
Those plans were forever alteredwhen Mr. Rivera was involved in a head-on collision with another car on Babcock Boulevard in Ross in October of his rookie season. Mr. Rivera had been drinking at a North Side bar after practice on a Thursday night. He was not wearing a seat belt and was ejected from the vehicle. He spent the rest of his life in a wheelchair.
Mr. Marino, meanwhile, went on to have a Hall of Fame career with the Miami Dolphins.
“Gabe was up against Danny Marino, who we had rated very high,” said Art Rooney Jr., the player personnel chief who was in charge of the draft back then. “My father was putting a lot of pressure on me to pick Marino. He wanted to make sure we drafted him. But Chuck pulled [director of player personnel] Dick Haley and me over into a corner and said, ‘We built this team on defense, and I think we should go in the same direction now. This guy from Texas Tech is the type of guy weare looking for.’”
Mr. Rivera never started a game for the Steelers, but he did record two sacks in six games before his injury. Former Steelers defensive coordinator Woody Widenhofer believes Mr. Noll did the right thing by selecting Mr. Rivera.
“I think he would have ended up being a great player,” Mr. Widenhofer said Tuesday from his home in Colorado. “He had the size, the strength, the quickness, the natural ability. He had everything it took.”
“I don’t know if I would have been a great one,” Mr. Rivera told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in May. “I know I would have been a good one. I think about it every once in a while, how things would haveturned out.
“I wonder once in a while, what it would be the other way. But you don’t want to stay too long. You think about it, how life would be different, but so far life has been good here.”
The Steelers made the playoffs in 1983 and again in 1984, but they fell on hard times for the remainder of the decade and into the early 1990s. They missed the playoffs in six of the next seven years and went through a number of quarterbacks after Hall of Famer Terry Bradshaw retired following the 1983 season due to an elbow injury.
“My dad never forgave me,” Art Rooney Jr. said. “There’s an old rumor going around Pittsburgh that on his death bed he said ‘You should have drafted Marino.’ That never happened, but it makesfor a good story.”
Art Rooney Jr. offered to show Mr. Rivera the ropes of player personnel and wanted to hire him to the Steelers’ scouting department. Years later, when Mr. Rooney was writing his book, he sought a meeting with Mr. Rivera, who told him he wished he had taken the scouting job that had been offered.
“Gabe was a big, strong athlete who made plays up and down the field,” Mr. Rooney said. “He had all the talent. There was no doubt about it.”
Mr. Rivera was charged with drunken and reckless driving shortly after the accident, but the prosecutor dismissed the charges, saying he had suffered enough. The driver of the other car was not injured.
Mr. Rivera faced a number of health challenges in recent years related to his paralysis, but he had been feeling better in recent months. He did a wide-ranging interview with the Post-Gazette in May that touched on a number of topics, including his thoughts on Ryan Shazier’s spinal cord injury.
Mr. Rivera spent much of his time after his football career ended volunteering for a nonprofit community organization in San Antonio.