Gabriel "Gabe" Rivera was one of the greatest players in the history of
Texas Tech football. He earned All American status, was enshrined into
the College Football Hall of Fame, and saw his name elevated to the
Texas Tech Ring of Honor. After his college career, Rivera became a
first-round selection of the Pittsburgh Steelers in 1983, but his career
would be tragically cut short by an accident during his rookie year that
left him paralyzed from the waist down.
Sports historian Jorge Iber's newest book chronicles this Mexican
American athlete's rise to prominence and later life. Beginning with the
Rivera family in Crystal City, Texas, a hotbed of Chicano activism in
the late 1960s, Señor Sack seeks to understand how athletic success
impacted the Rivera family's most famous son on his route to stardom.
Football provided this family with opportunities that were not often
available to other Mexican Americans during the 1940s and 1950s.
While Rivera's injury seriously derailed his life, Señor Sack also
chronicles his struggle to regain a sense of purpose. With great effort
and despite adversity, over the final two decades of his life, Rivera
found meaning in helping minority youths in his community of San
Antonio, serving as an example of what can be accomplished even under
incredibly trying circumstances. Ultimately, the true legacy of Gabe
Rivera is not just on the football field, but also in the lives he
touched with his volunteer work. One of the most storied Red Raiders and
a legend of Texas football, Gabe Rivera powered through many obstacles
to make way for future generations of Latinos in American sports.
