San Diego Charger’s Lineman Shane Olivea’s Cause Of Death Revealed

Details regarding the death of the former San Diego Chargers lineman Shane Olivea have been released to the public. Olivea, who passed away on March 2 at the age of 40, died from “hypertensive heart disease,” according to medical documents.

Olivea played for the Chargers from 2004 to 2007 after beginning his football career at Ohio State. He was released from the Chargers in 2008 because of a pain pill addiction, saying he once took over 100 Vicodin pills in one day at the worst of his struggles. “There wasn’t one day in the NFL I wasn’t high on a pill after my rookie year,” Olivea told The Columbus Dispatch in 2015.

“I’m an offensive lineman. You don’t show pain. We’re the tough guys on the team. We sort of suffer in silence. I wanted to reach out, that I needed help. I wanted to stop,” said Olivea.

He signed with the Giants while still completing a rehab program, but he never got to play with them because he was eventually put on injured reserve and then dropped from the team as well. He received a bachelor’s degree from his alma mater Ohio State with the stated intention to eventually become a college football coach.

Olivea’s passing caused several prominent people in the NFL to write tributes to him, including former linebacker Bobby Carpenter and current VP of the NFL, Roman Oben.