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Who Was Gabe Rivera? · Pittsburgh Sports Memories

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: Hi, everybody.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome to the Pittsburgh Sports Memories Podcast.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_02: I am your co-host, Tim Hannon, and I am joined by another co-host, and his name is uh Steven Wirt.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_02: Or Stephen Wirt.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, Steven.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_02: Whatever.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_02: Stephen and Timothy here to talk about Gabe Rivera, senior stack.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_02: Uh so april twenty sixth, nineteen eighty three is a pretty pivotal day in CR history because the decision they make that day to draft a defensive lineman from Texas over a quarterback from Pittsburgh Literally impacts the next two decades of Steel Wars football.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_02: And it's a moment that Steel Wars fans still talk about to this day.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_02: We recently posted a clip of a Steel Wars Dolphins game from the 80s on our Facebook page, and literally like dozens of people brought up the 1983 draft in the comments, right?
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_02: Anytime you see uh Dan Marino, it's just a reminder that the Steelers passed him up for this defensive lineman.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_02: So it really, you know, anytime you hear the name Gabe Rivera, most Steelers fans feel a lot of negative emotions because he represents a really sore spot in Steel Wars history.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_02: And admittedly, Steve, that's how I felt for years, right?
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_02: When you hear Gabriel Rivera, you just you cringe.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, it's it was a uh interesting decision by the powers that be at that time.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_03: It ended up changing the power structure in the franchise, too.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_03: It really was a like pivotal decision.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_03: It's it's weird.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_03: Like, I mean, maybe it's not just that one decision, but I would say that that was a big part of why one of a Rooney family member isn't you know running the team anymore.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_02: For sure, for sure.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_02: Uh but you know, at the at the end of all this, Gabe Rivera was a human being with a story.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_02: So I I wanted to learn more about his story and I wanted to tell our listeners about that story here in this podcast.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_02: So so here goes our best attempt to tell that story.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_02: So Gabriel Rivera is born in 1961 in Crystal City, Texas.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_02: This is a town that's close to the border, so you had a lot of Latino families there.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_02: And the 1960s is a time where a lot of change was happening in Crystal City, just like it was all over the country.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_02: And for years the Latino kids like Gabe were segregated to their own schools and didn't get the opportunities to do things like play big time high school football with the white kids.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_02: But that's changing during Gabe's childhood.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_02: His father, Juan, is a former athlete and a football coach, and Gabe and his brothers follow in dad's footsteps.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_02: By the time he's fourteen years old, Gabe Rivera is six foot three, two hundred and twenty-five pounds.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_02: Steve is a fourteen-year-old.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_02: For sure.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that's that that's starting on any high school team anywhere, and maybe a lot of college teams.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_02: Uh he becomes a two-way player at Jefferson High School.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_02: There's one game in his junior season where he catches two touchdowns, has an interception on defense, and makes a huge play on special teams.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_02: Uh he really excels at Jefferson High School.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_02: He makes the Parade All-American team.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_02: Which I don't know if they still do that, Steve, but that was a big deal back in the day to be on the Parade All-American team.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_03: I don't even know.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_03: Do they have Parade Magazine?
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, who gets the Sunday paper anymore?
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, good point.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_02: That's a good point.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, they used to do like the top ten high schools in the country, like rank the top ten high schools, too.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_03: So yeah.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I've I forgot, yeah, Parade magazine.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_02: That was always something you'd pull out of the Sunday insert.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it was always like just part of the Sunday paper.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_03: It's like, oh parade magazine.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_02: Uh Gabe also runs track in high school, which is hard to believe.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_02: A guy that's a 200, 200-plus-pound defensive lineman running the 100-yard dash.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_02: Can you just picture that?
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_03: That's uh good training, I guess.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_02: That's wild.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_02: Definitely a tremendous athlete, obviously, to be able to do that.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_02: Uh he's recruited by some bigger schools for college, but he ends up going to Texas Tech, partly because his family wanted to make sure he got a quality education, and partly because his mom, Maria Anthony, just felt the most comfortable with the people at Texas Tech who would be guiding her son.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_03: Where is he from again?
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_02: Is it El Paso?
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_02: Crystal City, Texas, which is close to the border, so it's like southern part of Texas.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_03: Because I'm thinking like Texas, Texas in the Lubbock.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_03: That's right.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_03: That's West Texas.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_03: That's the middle of nowhere.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_02: Well, and and at this time, this is we're talking like the mid-70s.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_03: Texas It's really the middle of nowhere.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and and also not exactly a powerhouse college football program at this time, right?
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_03: No, the biggest schools in Texas were still, you know, University of Texas and even TCU was bigger than, you know, or well, I guess SMU was hadn't come to power quite yet.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah, that's yeah, Texas AM was was still there too.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know how good they were at the time.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_02: But I mean Texas Tech definitely have has had some, you know, they've been on the national map since then.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_03: But yeah, some guy named Mahomes went there.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know if you'll ever work.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_02: That that that guy was okay, I guess.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_02: Back at this time, Texas Tech has some pretty bad teams.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_02: Uh they're never actually over 500 in all four years that Gabe Rivera is there.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_02: But Gabe is still a stud for Texas Tech, regardless.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_02: In his freshman season, he terrorizes a quarterback from USC, and that's where he earns his nickname, Senior Sack.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_02: He's a freakish athlete too.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_02: He's very fast.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_02: He can slam dunk a basketball.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_02: So again, Steve, this is like this huge defensive lineman.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_02: He could dunk a basketball and runs track.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_02: Uh one of the coaches says, quote, you've got to see Gabe to believe him.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_02: But Gabe's also not always making the best decisions.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, one constant issue in his entire time in Lubbock is his weight.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_02: Uh his teammates said he used to consume multiple cheeseburgers in one sitting.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_02: The coaches are really honored about keeping his weight in deck.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I do.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_03: I love I love a double quarter pounder with cheese, man.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, come on.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_03: That's that's just great.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_03: That's good stuff.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, uh who can turn that down.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_02: But uh yeah, so he struggles with with consistency with his weight, although really, I mean, it doesn't really impact his play a whole lot.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_02: It's just the coaches are like, dude, you're you're getting too big.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_02: And so he has to sort of yo-yo diet a few times.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_02: Uh really a bigger issue happens right before senior season.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_02: Rivera gets himself suspended from the team for smoking pot in his dorm room.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_03: Hey, back when that was a problem, huh?
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, so right, is smoking pot the most heinous thing ever, even in the 70s.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_02: No, but it was illegal at the time, and it was a violation of team roles.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_02: And and Steve, you said this on this podcast before, right?
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_02: You can agree or disagree, but if you signed up knowing the roles, you really can't be upset, right, when there's consequences.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_03: But that's true.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_03: Or you could just wait till the summer and do it when you're not in school, I guess.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, I don't know.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's another that's another option.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_03: Kids, kids be kids, I guess.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean college kids, right?
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um, Gabe's older brother Norbert actually goes to Lubbock to kind of chew out Gabe.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_02: He's like, you know, hey, because it's right before senior season.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_02: He's like, You're literally on the cusp of going to the NFL.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_02: You can't be smoking weed.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_02: But he says Gabe's reaction is kind of like meh.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_02: And he's like, Well, what are you gonna do if you can't play football?
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_02: And Gabe's like, well, I'll figure something out.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_02: So then his brother actually enlists the university president, who's also a Mexican American, to try to talk some sense into Gabe, and finally Gabe apologizes, he gets himself reinstated to the football team, and he starts saying all the right things in the local media about, you know, I need to be more accountable and all that kind of stuff.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_02: So up to this point, as we said, Gabe had played really well at Texas Tech, but this is the era where you didn't have widespread cable television, right?
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_02: You didn't have YouTube clips.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_02: So if you were good for a lesser known school, who saw that?
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_03: So what what were we talking like late 70s, early 80s?
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, correct.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I think ESBN was still televising ping pong and bowling and such.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_02: Right, right.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_02: And if you played for a school that wasn't on national TV, you know.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_03: I don't think Texas Tech is getting like the game of the week over like Michigan or you know, whoever they're playing.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_02: That's exactly right.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_02: Well, all that changes for Rivera on October 23rd, 1982.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_02: Texas Tech goes on the road to play the number one ranked team in the country, the Washington Huskies, who are averaging 40 points per game.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_02: And on this day, Washington does win the game, but they can only muster 10 points, mainly because of Gabe Rivera.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_02: Remember, there's a offense that's averaging 40 points a game, and they only get one touchdown and a field goal.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_02: And after the game, uh one newspaper writes this quote, Gabe was like a mad hornet trapped in a fast-moving car with all the windows up.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_02: The Huskies didn't know whether to pull over, open all the doors, and wait until he escaped, or keep traveling and hoping and hope he stayed at the rear window.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_03: Wow.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_03: High praise.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_02: Well, uh it that was the newspaper.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_02: Now, the head coach of Washington is a guy named Don James.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_02: He literally makes it a point to find Rivera after the game to congratulate him.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_02: And then in the post-game press conference, he calls Gabe Rivera, quote, the best defensive player I've ever seen.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_02: This is this is the coach of the number one team in the country saying this about a kid from a three-and-four team from Lubbock.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_02: So again, high praise.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_02: And then, and then in a little bit of uh foreshadowing here, an offensive lineman from Washington says, quote, Rivera is the closest thing I've ever seen to Joe Green.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_03: That well, I know somebody else is gonna think that too.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_02: Uh-huh.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_02: So all of that hype around that Washington game, even though, like we said, Texas Tech lost, that really puts Gabe on the national radar.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_02: Sports Illustrated does a feature on him.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_02: ESPN, you mentioned ESPN, Steve.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_02: ESPN does a feature on him.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_02: Rivera finishes his college career with all kinds of accolades.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_02: Uh the Texas Tech head coach talks about how proud he is of Gabe.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_02: He even gets telegrams from NFL teams congratulating him on a great senior season because apparently in 1982, people are still sending telegrams.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_03: Telegram from President Roosevelt.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_03: Ooh.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_03: I got a telegram from President Reagan.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_02: My office instructed to forward you up to$40,000.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_02: Stop.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_02: Merry Christmas.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_02: Or he haw and Merry Christmas.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_02: So Gabe, Gabe also gets engaged to his college girlfriend Kim at this time.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_02: They're expecting a baby.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_02: He's primed to be a high NFL draft pick.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_02: Future is looking bright for Gabe Rivera as he exits Texas Tech.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_02: So now let's talk about the infamous 1983 NFL draft.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_03: Well, it's at least infamous for us.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_03: Everybody else just calls it the quarterback draft.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_02: Well, yeah, yeah.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_02: Definitely infamous for us.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_02: And I think when Pittsburgh Sports fans talk about this draft, they they all have an explanation of what happened.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_02: And a lot of those explanations differ.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_02: So I really want to dig deep and do my best to explain maybe what the thought process was for the Steelers around this draft.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_02: So first, let's talk about where the Steelers are in the spring of 1983.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_02: They're now three full seasons removed from winning their fourth Super Bowl.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_02: They missed out on the playoffs in 80 and 81, but they hosted a playoff game in 1982 in which they got upset by the San Diego Chargers.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_02: We actually did a whole episode about that, that insane game.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_02: And most of the 70 Stalwarts have either retired or are on their last leg.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_02: So in any draft, in any draft really, a team can go in multiple directions, but it's fair to say that the Steelers have two glaring needs in front of them.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_02: Number one, their starting quarterback Terry Bradshaw is going into his 14th season.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_02: Number two, the player who almost everyone, including the Roonies, have identified as the greater Steeler of all time, the aforementioned Joe Green.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_02: He had retired a year earlier and their defense needs to be rebuilt.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_02: So those are the two needs.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_02: Meanwhile, across town, there's a kid by the name of Dan Marino, who had just wrapped up a brilliant career at the University of Pittsburgh.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_02: In four years as a starter, Marino only loses six games and sets numerous goal records.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_02: Steve, can you imagine a four-year stretch of Pitt only losing six games?
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know what I do with myself.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_03: Um I will say this, they did have a he did have a down senior season.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_02: He he did.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_02: We'll actually get to that when we talk about the uh the the kind of what was going through everybody's minds, but that's a very good point.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_02: Uh Marino is projected to be a first-round pick in the NFL.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_02: So so the draft starts to play out.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_02: We get to the Steelers pick at number 21, and amazingly, Dan Marino is still there.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_02: There were four other quarterbacks taken already.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_02: John Elway, Todd Blackledge, Jim Kelly, and Tony Eason.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_03: Todd Blackledge of well Penn State, baby.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_03: Tony Eason?
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_03: Tony Eason?
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_03: Tony Eason was.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_03: What about Ken O'Brien?
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_03: Didn't they didn't Ken O'Brien go to this was after.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_02: Ken O'Brien was after this, yeah.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_02: But but yeah, Tony Eason was uh well Ken O'Brien was after the Steelers, but before the Dolphins.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_03: The Dolphins, yeah.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_03: That's pathetic that I remember that.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_02: So also also there on the board is Senior Zach Gay Rivera.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_02: So so okay.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_02: So now let's pretend we're in the draft room in 1983 and we're looking at both of these guys.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_02: I'm thinking Ken O'Brien.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_02: Also, look, we won't do we won't do the Ken O'Brien evaluation, but let's let's first let's look at Gabe Rivera.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_02: You have this stud of a defensive lineman, super athletic, right, can dunk a basketball, can run the hundred-yard dash.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_02: Seems like a can't miss NFL star.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_02: If you're the Steelers, you know that this model of building around a guy like that works because you won four Super Bowls in the previous decade with the greatest defense of all time, all because you built it around Joe Green.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_02: Terry Bradshaw, like we said, 14th season.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, but look at look at some of his contemporaries, okay?
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_02: Fran Tarkinson played for 18 seasons, Ken Stabler, 17 seasons, Johnny Unitis, 18 seasons, Kenny Anderson 16 seasons.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_02: Heck, later on, Ben Rothesperger would play for 18 seasons.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_02: So if you're doing the math, Bradshaw might play until pretty much the end of the 80s.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_02: Like Bradshaw could still be there in 1988, for all you know.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_02: Uh the Steelers have also recently invested a first-round pick on a quarterback from Arizona State named Mark Malone.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_02: So they had already drafted a first-round quarterback a few years earlier.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and so maybe you think you're much more set at quarterback than you are on defensive line.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_02: Another complicating factor that Steve already mentioned, by all accounts, Marino had a really bad senior season at Pitt, and there are rumors that he has a cocaine problem.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_02: So all of that adds up to picking Rivera.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_02: Now, let's play the other side of that argument.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_02: Quarterback is the most important position in football.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_02: And in the 80s, the NFL was really turning into a passing league.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_02: You also, if you're the Steelers, you know how good Dan Marino is.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_02: He was a star at Central Catholic.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_02: He was a star at Pitt.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_02: This isn't a guy that the Steelers didn't already know everything about.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_02: And yes, he had a bad senior season, but that was also the year that Pitt had switched coaching staff.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_02: So I think that was Foge Fasio's first year, Steve, correct?
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_03: It was Foge.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_02: So that factored into it.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_02: Uh also Terry Bradshaw has elbow issues.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_02: And Mark Malone, your first round pick from a few years ago, he still hasn't even passed Cliff Stout on the death chart.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_02: So are you really set at quarterback?
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_02: So those are your two arguments, Steve.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_02: What do you what are you thinking?
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_03: Well, uh I mean hindsight.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_03: It's tough because we have hindsight.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_03: So it's tough to like but I I can see like why they would go with you know Gabe Rivera because you know, that's how they built the last time, and you know, you know this works, and you know you can build that way.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_03: But I think two things happened that they were ignorant on.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_03: Number one, Terry Bradshaw hit his injury and that totally screwed them over.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_03: And you know, him going to that, what he went to that fake doctor, or not fake, but he went to another doctor and didn't tell the team.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_03: And the team didn't know, so the team couldn't draft.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_03: And Terry did that because he didn't want to get cut.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_03: So I mean I'm not blaming Terry Bradshaw for doing it, but it plays into why the Steelers think, oh, okay, well, Terry's okay.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_03: Whereas if they would have had their doctor do it, and their doctor would have said, his own's a little uh, you know.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_03: Maybe they're more like, okay, let's get another quarterback.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_03: You can and that's another thing, is you can never have enough quarterbacks.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_03: Uh you just keep throwing them at the wall until you find the right one, I think at that position.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_03: And uh, I mean, I I don't know.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_03: I I just think it was the brother and Chuck Knoll.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, who's the brother?
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_02: Art Rr.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_03: They were in charge at that point, right?
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_03: According to Dan, and according to Art Jr.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_03: himself, and him and Chuck Knowle didn't listen to to um uh who was the reporter for the SD.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, who proposed a way they could have got both.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_03: I think Gabe Rivera and in that.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_03: And and let's say they they go off the board and draft Ken O'Brien, you know, a big what if.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_03: He had a better career than Mark Malone.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_03: You know, he had a solid pro career.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, Ken O'Brien was actually not a bad quarterback.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_02: He just wasn't Dan Marino.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_03: Well, no, and he played for the Jets, and the Jets weren't that great.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_02: I mean Yeah, so so the Steelers obviously choose Rivera.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_02: Let's let's hear directly from Chuck Noel on this.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_02: And this is signific this interview that you're about to hear is significant because it's from after Noel had retired.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_02: So by this point, we already know that Dan Marino is a Hall of Famer.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_06: Uh the rumor was uh a big part of it, Myron.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_06: There's no question about it, because uh I think at that stage uh uh there wasn't anybody who had a clue as to uh uh what drugs were all about.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_04: And the marijuana was scaring people to death on the guy.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_06: Well, it was uh that was a real problem.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_06: That's why he lasted as long as he did.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know why.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_03: Why didn't he you know what Don Jula did?
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_03: He picked up the phone and called Foge.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_03: And Foge was like, no, he's not doing drugs.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_03: And there you have it.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know, you know something else that happened, Steve?
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_02: Most people don't know this.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_02: Art Rooney Sr.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_02: hired two Pittsburgh police officers to secretly investigate those rumors, and and this is what they tell the chief and Art Jr., who is, as Steve said, the head of scouting at the time.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_02: And this is directly from Art Jr.'s book.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_02: So this is Art Jr.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_02: in the room.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, he's telling on himself.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_02: He has no, yeah, he has no reason to lie.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_02: He's this is Art Jr.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_02: and his dad in the room with these two Pittsburgh police detectives.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_02: They say, quote, we find no evidence that he is using, selling, or transporting hard drugs like cocaine.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_02: There are not any mavies about this.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_02: He may have puffed on some marijuana.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_02: Most college kids nowadays do.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_02: End quote.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_03: But even Gabe Rivera.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_03: Like, what why does marijuana scare them away?
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_03: That's what's so I didn't get why you told that other story.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_03: No, I do.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_03: Why are they so scared away on Dan Marino and not Gabe Rivera, who was literally suspended for the team for doing it?
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, right.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_02: That's exactly right.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_02: These police detectives are like, well, maybe he puffed on some marijuana.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_02: Gabe Rivera like not only definitely did it, he got suspended and then had to like apologize his way back onto the team.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_02: So if they were really scared of marijuana, you know, they shouldn't have drafted Gabe Rivera.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not buying it, Steve.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_02: Like, with all due respect to Chuck Knoll, I honestly think that is him just trying to revise history a little bit because it turned out to be such a monumentally franchise altering bad decision.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_02: I I'm just not buying that they were scared off by drugs and that everybody was scared off by drugs.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_02: I think they had all the information they needed.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_02: They knew he wasn't on drugs.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_02: Here's no That same interview with a reason that I think makes a little more sense.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, and uh we thought that uh Terry would uh be around for uh a considerable time.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_06: Uh you know, we didn't realize he was gonna have the surgery and that.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_06: So uh you're talking about uh trying to use your resources uh uh in a way that uh uh you know you're not gonna uh load up if you've got somebody that's gonna carry you there.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_06: Uh you don't want to necessarily load up at that position when you needed help in other areas.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_04: And you had Cliff Stout and you had Mark Malone, a number one draft pick, and there was uh some hope that if they ever got out on the field they could do it and replace Terry, succeed him.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_02: I I I I honestly think that's where their head was.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_03: Well, they didn't know about the secret surgery.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_03: I think if and then I think Terry didn't if they would have known, maybe too, let's say they have the surgery, it's not a secret, and the team rests him and allows them to rehab it properly.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_03: Maybe he does play to 1988.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_03: So it's a combination of Terry being Terry, the the NFL being skeezy, you know, because tell me they don't cut people for stuff like that, especially back then.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_02: Well, and Bradshaw and Knoll didn't have the best relationship either.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_02: That didn't count.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_02: And and and what they what ends up happening is Bradshaw misses the first like 13 or 14 games of that 83 season, and then they put him back in against the Jets, and he plays for like two quarters and hurts his elbow again, and then he never plays again.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_02: And you're right, Steve, what if they just would have said, hey, we're gonna take the whole 83 year off and let you rehab and then you come back strong in 84?
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_02: You know, um, does that change things?
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_02: We'll we'll never know.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_02: But I think I think again, I think all that mattered more than merino drug rumors.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_02: And here's something else to think about.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_02: The Steelers have 14 picks, 14 picks in the 1983 draft.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_02: You know how many quarterbacks they took?
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_03: I have no idea.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_02: Zero.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_02: So I I firmly believe that quarterback was never even remotely in the cards for the Steelers that year.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_02: If if they really thought quarterback was even remotely a need, why not draft one in the third round or the fourth round?
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_02: But but I don't think it was even like I said, they they didn't they weren't even thinking quarterback.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_02: They were set at quarterback.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_02: They had Bradshaw for another few years.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_03: They had they had Malone to groom, and if not, they had Stout to fill in.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_02: That's exactly right.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yep.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_02: And and and instead you have the possibility to get the next Joe Green to build another dynasty around.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_02: That's why they took Gabe Rever.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's really what it came down to.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_02: And again, I it like we said, like you said, Steve, it's all hindsight.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_02: It's so easy to look back and criticize now because of the way it worked out.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_02: But at the time, I can I can kind of understand the thinking.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_02: So everybody remembers, like we said, in hindsight, that that was such an awful pick, and how could we pass up Dan Marino?
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_02: But I'm not sure that was the feeling at the time.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and to be fair, I mean, Steve and I were pretty young at this point, so I'm not sure we necessarily had the pulse of the Pittsburgh sports public.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_02: But there was there was genuine excitement around the drafting of Gabe Rivera.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, here's Myron Cope and Stan Savron interviewing Rivera on the night of the draft.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_09: Yeah, we got the Gabriel Rivera here, uh, who is gonna one day become a legendary still or headquarters.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_09: Can you imagine his family?
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_09: Uh here's the guy who tells me that in high school he weighs 235 baths and one hundred-yard baskets on the track back.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_09: team.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_09: Can you imagine me?
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_09: I'm a hundred yard dash man in high school.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_09: I'm down in the blocks, and I look up and I see a 235 100 yard sprinter.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_09: What do you feel like?
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_09: Did you ever line up against some guy like that anymore who went right in the face and dropped dead?
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_00: I sure did.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_00: I think I think everybody in the stands was wondering what I was doing going
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_09: down the block.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_09: Yo, yay, yeah.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_09: 235 buttons, what's your 45 buttons?
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_05: Well, I know about 4748.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_05: For those who aren't familiar with uh comparative figures, 4748 is uh for a man that size is just phenomenal.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_05: You heard some of the wide receivers wrapped into a 465, so you can imagine Gabe running a 4'7 at 290 pounds.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_03: Dan Savern with the context.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_03: I see.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_03: That was good, that was a good job by Stan, given giving the listeners some context there.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_03: But look how much faster everybody's gotten.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_02: Like Well, yeah, that's true too.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, I think Aaron Donald runs a 4-5, doesn't he?
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I mean, also think about the you know, um guys have now trained for these.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, all year round.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_02: And well, well, and trained specifically for these kinds of like timed, you know, how fast can you run events and stuff like that, where they probably didn't before.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_02: But that's still amazing that he's that you know, he's he's got wide receiver speed and he's uh he's this bulking or this hulking defensive lineman.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_02: That's pretty impressive.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_03: Oh yeah, for sure.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_03: I can see what the you know, you can definitely see why he was a first-round draft pick.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and and and you heard the excitement in that interview.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_02: The fans really start getting excited about this guy, too.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, he really endears himself to the locals when he gets drafted in the first round of the USFL draft as well.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_02: Because back then, remember, Steve, that was the era of the USFL pillaging players.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_02: But he immediately says, quote, no, I grew up watching the Steelers.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_02: I love the Steelers.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_02: I want to play here.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_03: How did he grow up watching the Steelers in Crystal City, Texas?
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_03: That's what I want to know.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_02: So probably because it was the Dallas all those times?
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_02: No, probably because it was the 70s, and and if you didn't have a local NFL team, you watched the national broadcast, and probably the Steelers were on the national broadcast often.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_03: So he wasn't a Cowboys fan.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, he literally says uh he doesn't like the he says he doesn't like the Cowboys, even though he grew up in Texas, which scores him even more points with the Yinzers.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_03: It would, it would.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_02: One Pittsburger says that he and his daughter came out to St.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_02: Vincent's that summer just to see Gabe.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_02: Another fan writes a poem about him making sacks.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_02: So so again, like this notion that everybody was like so upset about we passed on Merino, that isn't happening, at least at this point.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_02: At this point, people are like, wow, we got a stud.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_02: Uh training camp for Gabe doesn't start out real great.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_02: He shows up a little overweight.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_02: Like we said, that was an issue, you know, uh uh when he was at Texas Tech, and the local media kind of picks up on that right away.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_02: And uh Gabe's also dealing with an injury that causes him to miss some practice time at first, but eventually he gets healthy.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_02: He does play in the preseason games, and he looks pretty good in preseason.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_02: Heading into the regular season, there's a lot of buzz that the defense is going to be back in peak form because remember, yeah, this wasn't the 70s anymore.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_02: We were everybody was really looking for like a defensive revival.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_02: Uh Rivera plays sparingly in the season opener against Denver, and then he misses the next game with a concussion.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_02: In week three, the Steelers travel to Houston to take on Archie Manning and the Oilers.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_02: If you don't know who Archie Manning is, he's Peyton and Eli's dad.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_03: If you have uh relations with him, you got a two out of three chance of having an NFO quarterback.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_03: Just saying, ladies.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_03: Just saying.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_02: Also Cooper's Cooper's dead.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_02: We don't want to forget about poor Cooper.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_03: Cooper was a good Cooper was a good athlete in his own right.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_03: He just got hurt.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_02: So uh in that game, and he's uh uh the rookie starts to make some waves.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_02: Uh we'll play this class.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_07: Second and ten.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_07: Look at this.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_07: He's handy and spalled down by Ravara.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_07: He just he just runs right over the two linemen that are trying to handle him.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_07: Now we've been talking about the offensive linemen that uh the Oilers are said to have that are supposed to be so fine.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_07: Now it's very hard for a center to handle his job by himself, but uh my goodness, David Carter, Mike Munchak, Bruce Matthews, they need all three of them to take care of him, and uh they're not doing it.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_03: Wow.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_03: There's a there's a uh future Steelers uh assistant coach on there, too.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_03: And Matthews is really good.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_03: He's gonna play to like the 90s.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, the the the two linemen who he like blew through, Mike Munchak and Bruce Matthews, they're both in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_02: And he just blew through both of them.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_02: But but yeah, so now people are starting to get really excited.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_02: Uh the next week, John Clayton of the Pittsburgh Press writes an article highlighting the fact that Rivera has gained almost 20 pounds since training camp.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_02: And that's because Gabe says that's because he found a restaurant in the North Tales that made burritos like the ones he had back home.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_03: Oh boy.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_03: Thank God he didn't live and beat you.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_03: He couldn't have kept him out of uh Las Palmas there.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_02: So the Steelers are quickly all over that.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_02: The conditioning coach says, hey, we're working with him on his diet, we're gonna get his weight back down.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_02: Again, like his weight fluctuated throughout college, and it didn't really hamper him there.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_02: So probably something that that wasn't going to be a long-term problem.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_02: In week six, he has a huge game against the Bengals.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_02: He only has one sack, but defensive coordinator, Steelers defensive coordinator, Woody Wodenhofer, says stats don't tell the whole story because there were a bunch of plays where Cincinnati had to hurry their throws because Gabe was bearing down on the quarterback.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_02: And Woodenhofer also says, quote, he has a chance to be one of the great ones, end quote.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_02: So it's at this point in 1983, the Steelers are five and two.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_02: They're in first place in the AFC Central, and Gabe Rivera only he's only really played in about five or six games so far, but he's definitely looking like a guy that is going to be an up-and-coming superstar.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_02: And then comes the fateful evening of Thursday, October 20th.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_02: Uh that evening, Gabe leaves practice.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_02: He goes to a place called Julian's on the north side, and he has a few drinks.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_02: He's driving home inebriated.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_02: He swears into the wrong lane and hits another car head on.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_02: The other driver somehow isn't too injured, but Rivera is thrown from his car by about thirty feet.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_02: The injuries are severe, nerve damage to the right arm, a bruised heart, fractured ribs on both sides, a punctured right lung, serious contusion to both lungs, and a fractured vertebrae in the upper back.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_02: At first there are concerns about whether or not he will survive.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_02: Within 72 hours of the accident, doctors inform the Steelers that he'll never play football again.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_02: And a couple of days after that, it's clear that Rivera has lost the use of his legs and will not walk again.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_02: Doctors say it's a long road ahead, too.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_02: They say many, many basic functions will have to be learned all over again.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_02: For example, he'll have to learn to feed himself.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_02: Man, could you imagine, Steve?
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_02: Like this isn't, you know, this isn't a guy who like made one bad decision after another, or like an Antonio Brown who kind of like kept going from team to team to team and getting himself kicked out.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_02: This is a guy that went out for dinner a kid.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, he's still really young at this point.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_02: Goes out for dinner, has too many drinks, makes one bad decision to drive home, and it literally costs him everything.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that's that's tough.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_03: And I mean, I remember hearing like you know, about the news conference, I guess, when they said that he was paralyzed about you know Stan Saver and said how how upset, you know, it was he said he was shocked, shocked at a person so young, you know.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean he he he was just starting to to become this standout player, and uh and again it it's all over on that in that one moment.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_02: Uh Gabe's wife, Kim, who is nine months pregnant at this point, is asleep at their house, and this is really eerie, Steve.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_02: She has a nightmare.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_02: The police knock on our door to tell her that Gabe had been killed in a car accident, and the thing that wakes her up from that dream is the police knocking on the door to tell her that Gabe was in a car accident.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_03: With some final destination stuff going on there.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_02: Uh for their part, the Steors are supportive financially and emotionally.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_02: Uh Gabe's mother, Maria Antonia, who doesn't speak a lot of English, uh, she comes to Pittsburgh as soon as she hears about the accident, and the chief uh puts her and the family up at the downtown Hilton, and he takes her to morning mass and breakfast pretty much every day she's there.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_02: Uh the chief even sends her handwritten letters for the next two years to keep giving her updates on how her son is doing.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, like, could you imagine an NFL owner doing that today?
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_03: I the more I hear about the chief, the more you you know, he makes you want to be a better person.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_03: You know what I mean?
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 35:20
  unknown: Yeah.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_02: Like I I can see, you know, putting the family up at a hotel and stuff like that, but he like goes and takes her to mass every morning while he's Yeah, and they're you know, yeah, it's yeah.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_03: Wow.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_02: Like personally, not like sends like somebody from the team to do it or something.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_03: So he probably was going anyway, so might as well bring that along.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, yeah, it it just wild.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that that's that's it you're right.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_02: It's it you're right.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_02: It's just the more you hear, the more you're just amazed.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_02: That this the way Bart Rooney's a mythical figure in this town.
• 35:52
  unknown: Yeah.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_02: But but but even with Bart Rooney doing his part, the whole thing is is a little bit of a mess.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_02: There's tension between Gabe's wife and his mother.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, I don't know where that came from.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_02: Like we said, they they got pregnant and then got married.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know if that was a whole thing.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_02: Uh but you can imagine a situation like this doesn't doesn't help with the wife and mother both trying to be in the middle of it.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_02: There are all kinds of financial considerations to be made too.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_02: And uh, you know, as we said, Gabe still has a long road ahead of him.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_02: There's no million-dollar football career to fall back on at this point.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_02: And over the subsequent months, uh, he takes small steps forward.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_02: He's able to dress himself, he's able to change his son's diapers.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_02: He's even able to attend a penguins game where he gets a standing ovation from the fans.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_02: But the daily grind of having to rehab and you know, having to live life as a paraplegic, it slowly wears on Gay Rivera.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_02: His wife Kim says he starts drinking a lot and he starts smoking pot.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_02: He rejects the notion of counseling.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, remember, you know, we're still in an era where men were men and therapies for crazy people, right?
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_02: Uh he talks about finishing his degree so he could start a new career, but he never does that.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_02: He travels to China to participate in an acupuncture therapy that he hopes will maybe give him some nobility back, but that doesn't work.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_02: And all this time he's not working.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_02: He's sinking into a depression.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_02: The Steelers actually offer him a scouting job, but he turns them down.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_02: Uh in 1987, Kim files for divorce, and Gabe moves back to Texas to move in with his parents.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_02: Then into the 1990s, he continues to drink, smoke pot, wonder uh would it have just been better if I had died in that accident?
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_02: He uh he gets himself arrested for the marijuana, he gets married a second time, and he gets divorced a second time.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_02: He tries to build a relationship with his son Tim, who by this point is like nine or ten years old, but Tim later says that kind of had mixed results, and then both of his parents pass away also.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_02: And like every five years or so, the media does some kind of retrospective, and I've always been a little suspect of those because those are meant to be feel-good pieces, right?
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_02: You go to interview someone who's not in the limelight anymore, and what are they gonna say?
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_02: Like, well, actually, I'm in a deep depression right now.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_02: So, so sure enough, Steve, I went back and read some of those, and and in those in those like five-year, ten-year retrospective, Gabe's talking about you know getting a degree that he never gets, so he can start a new career that he never actually starts.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, and then they find people around him who are all like, oh yeah, Gabe is such an inspiration, blah, blah, blah.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_02: Uh none of that, yeah, none of that is really true.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_02: So his his his brother Norbert says Gabe's basically lost for about 16 years after the accident.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_03: That's that's very sad.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_03: I mean I don't know what to say.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_03: I mean that's that's a tough, tough deal.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_03: Tough deal for uh Gabe Rivera and you wouldn't wish that on anybody.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_02: No, and you can see uh you can see feeling bad for yourself, right?
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_02: Uh you can see the self-pity because you did it to yourself, right?
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, again, a mistake any of us could have made, but you technically it wasn't like uh uh it wasn't like he got hurt hurt on the football field, like make an attack or something, right?
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_02: It was literally a a a bad decision.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_02: And um and it's like again, it costs you everything.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_02: Everything.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_03: Uh yeah.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I don't know what to say.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, sad.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_02: So meanwhile, back in Pittsburgh, the Steelers are also kind of lost for the same sixteen years after the accident.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_02: Uh the 1980s play out with the Steelers going into a deep decline.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_02: For the rest of Chuck Knowles' tenure, he's never able to rebuild the defense, nor is he ever able to land a true franchise quarterback.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_03: No, Bubby, you know, Bubby.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_02: Well, yeah, sorry, I forgot Bubby.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, let's give Bubby the respect he deserves.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_02: And then the 1990s brings Bill Cower and some great teams who come oh so close to a championship but fall short each time.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_02: At the end of the 1999 season, Dan Marino retires as the NFL's all-time leading passer while the Steelers stumble to their worst season in the Cower and Toddlin years combined.
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_02: And there are so many what-ifs.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_02: Like, what if the Steelers had Marino all those years?
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_02: Does Dan Marino throw two interceptions to Larry Brown in the Super Bowl?
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_02: Or what if what if the Steelers had Gabe Rivera all those years and he became like an Aaron Donald like phenon?
• 40:46
  unknown: Yeah.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_02: You know, how does that alter the trajectory of the franchise?
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_02: Uh Rivera Rivera even says that he watched the Steelers play in Super Bowl 30 and knows he could have been playing in that game.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_02: He would have been in like his 11th or 12th season at that point.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it might have been, yeah.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, I mean, a lot of what ifs either way, if that accident ever happens.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_02: So, so if this were the end of the story, that would be a bummer.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_02: But fortunately, it's not.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, we talked about what was happening in the NFL in 1999 with Dan Marino retiring and the Stewart uh having their worst season uh to date in the in the Cower and Tomlin years.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_02: Also, in 1999, there's a turning point in Gabe Rivera's life because two things happen to Gabe that year.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_02: Number one, he meets a woman named Nancy Morris and they fall in love.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_02: Here's Nancy talking about how they met.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_01: I was at the zoo and uh he ran over my foot.
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_01: You know, to me he was just some kind of whoop chair that ran over my foot.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_01: But we started walking along, talking and visiting, and just kind of hit it off.
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_02: That's a good meat cute story, Steve.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_02: Ran over ran over your foot with a wheelchair.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_03: Well, you never know where love will strike.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_02: Uh so that's the first thing that happens.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_02: Uh the second thing, through Nancy's encouragement, Gabe answers an ad in the paper looking for volunteers to work with kids at a place called inner city development.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_02: This this uh inner city development place is in a district in Texas where, and listen to these stats, 93% of the student body is on free or reduced price lunch.
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_02: The average family's income is less than eleven thousand dollars per year.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_02: Only about one-third of the adults have a high school diploma.
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_02: Nearly 80% of the households are headed by a single parent, and the teen pregnancy rate is three times higher than the national rate.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_02: Sounds like a place that could use some volunteers, huh, Steve?
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_03: Well, the right kind of volunteers.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_03: Hopefully Gabe can help him out there.
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, yeah.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_03: He's certainly been through a lot, so yeah.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_02: Well, and that plays into this.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_02: He and he's initially there only to help out with a summer sports program, because it's like, oh, a former athlete he can help with the summer sports program.
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_02: It's just supposed to be for the summer, but he stays on and actually starts working as a tutor, and he really clicks with these kids.
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_02: The directors at inner city development say the kids love them.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_02: And and these are these are literal quotes from letters that the kids wrote to the center thanking Gabe.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, one kid wrote, quote, thank you for getting me through the year academically.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_02: Another kid wrote, uh, quote, I'm glad that I met you, and I want to thank you for listening to my personal problems.
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_02: Another kid said, Thanks for pushing me.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_02: I really learned a lot from you.
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_02: And then another kid that lost his father said Gabe was basically like a second father to him.
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, the kids also often ask Gabe how he ended up in a wheelchair, and every time he tells them it was because of drinking and driving.
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_02: So what a powerful thing, right?
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_02: To see someone you look up to like that.
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_02: Not just like giving you lip service about the dangers of.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_02: Drinking and driving, but you actually see how it impacted their lives as well.
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that's uh wow.
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it sounds like he really uh was an asset to the community down there.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_02: Gabe says, quote, I hope at least my accident serves as an ex serves as an example to the use of the high cost of being irresponsible.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_02: Uh in 2012, Rivera is inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame.
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_02: He's interviewed by Ron Cook of the Postgazette, and he says, quote, if not for the accident, I wouldn't have met the kids that I'm working with.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_02: Hopefully they can learn something from me and I can make a difference in their lives.
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_02: He also becomes the vice president of Inner City's Board of Directors.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_02: Again, he started off, this was supposed to be a summer volunteer thing, and now he's the vice president of their board.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_02: So that's pretty cool.
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_02: After all those years of kind of wandering in the wilderness, he he finds his niche.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_03: That's a that's an Yeah, what a great second act.
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_03: Boy, this guy's killing it, man.
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, very cool.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_02: Um unfortunately, his health declines over time as well.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_02: Doctors told him all along that he likely wouldn't make it to old age because of the spinal cord injury, and he deals with a number of infections.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_02: I'm sure, Steve, that the years of drinking alcohol and abusing drugs didn't help either.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_03: Probably not.
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_02: On July 13th, 2018, Gabe volunteers at the center, as he always did, but he's feeling really sick and he checks himself into the hospital.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_02: Doctors quickly discover that he's got a perforated bowel and a perforated colon, and they tell him there's literally nothing they can do.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_02: Uh Gabe gets to spend a few final days with Nancy and his son Tim in the hospital.
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_02: He also gets to visit with some of the kids from the center who come see him as well.
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_02: Uh he tells people that because of his faith in Jesus, he knows he's headed to a better place.
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_02: And he reminds the kids once again not to drink and drive.
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_02: On July 16th, 2018, Gabe Rivera passes away at the age of 57.
• 46:03
  SPEAKER_03: He ended up having a great second act.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's that's great.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_03: After all that, he was able to turn it around there.
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_03: So he found somebody that you know helped him out too.
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_03: And found a great third time getting married was a charm, apparently, for him.
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, absolutely.
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_02: Like what a what a you know, because that could have just those 16 years of you know being the rest of his life.
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_02: Could have been the rest of his life very easily.
• 46:31
  SPEAKER_02: Uh there there's lots of tributes and things like that when Gabe passes away.
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_02: I think maybe the best thing said came from the director of inner city development.
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_02: He said that Gabe's life was a reminder to make good decisions, but also a ri a reminder to make the most of whatever life deals you.
• 46:49
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 46:50
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, I think also, too, if you make a bad decision, it's not the end of your life.
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_03: You can you can still find, you know, a very useful and fulfilling life after that.
• 47:01
  SPEAKER_03: So yeah, yeah.
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_02: And he talked a lot at the end of his life about his faith.
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, God used him to do some amazing things and and you know, turning something terrible into something good.
• 47:11
  SPEAKER_02: So So there you go.
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_02: As I said, the selection of Gabe Rivera for Dan Marino is an incredibly pivotal moment in Steeler history.
• 47:19
  SPEAKER_02: So um, I just wanted to learn more about who Gabe Rivera was and share more about his story because that that wasn't his whole life wasn't defined by not being picked over Dan Marino.
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, that was that's a great sports story, and that's fun.
• 47:35
  SPEAKER_03: But boy, the the actual human story is much more interesting and inspiring than you know the the draft day story of 1983.
• 47:45
  SPEAKER_02: For sure.
• 47:47
  SPEAKER_02: All right, folks.
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_02: Uh thanks as always for listening.
• 47:50
  SPEAKER_02: We really appreciate everybody that listens to this show.
• 47:53
  SPEAKER_02: Uh please check us out on Facebook.
• 47:56
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• 47:58
  SPEAKER_02: Uh there's all kinds of links in the show notes where you can do that.
• 48:01
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• 48:03
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• 48:08
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks as always, and we'll catch you next time.