Lawrence footballer Shane Olivea, dies at 40

Lawrence High School graduate, Shane Olivea, class of 2000, died on March 2. He was 40.

Olivea was the winner of Nassau County’s 1999 Al Martone Award for the best lineman, attended Ohio State University and was drafted in the seventh round of the 2004 NFL draft by San Diego. The No. 209th pick overall.

He played for the Chargers (2004-2007) and was on the Giants 2008 on the practice squad. Olivea started 57 of the 60 games he played. Olivea later played for the Florida Tuskers and Virginia Destroyers of the United States Football League in 2010 and 2011, respectively.

“In 2006, Olivea was an integral piece of an offensive line that helped Hall of Fame running back LaDainian Tomlinson break the NFL’s single-season touchdown record. Olivea started all 16 games that season at right tackle,” according to a Chargers news release.

Originally from Long Beach, Olivea transferred to Lawrence High and made a huge impact. “He was a sweetheart of a kid and the offensive lineman ever from Nassau County,” said Section VIII Coordinator Pat Pizzarelli, who was the longtime Lawrence athletic director. “Kids gravitated to him. He was a big teddy bear. The coaches tried to get him angry. But then he would go out and knock the crap out of people.”

The teddy bear side included buying the championship rings after Lawrence captured a football championship one year, Pizzarelli said.

Olivea endured an addiction to painkillers, taking as many as 125 Vicodin pills daily, he told the Columbus Dispatch in 2016. He said his doctors called him a “walking miracle” for surviving that barrage of medicating.