Angel Rubio and his son were making a two-hour drive Thursday morning from their home in the St. Louis area to a family cabin remote enough that it’s devoid of cellular service.
“I don’t have to take any (calls or emails),” Rubio said with a chuckle via phone while on that drive. “I can blame everything on it. I can say, ‘Man, sorry, I told you guys, I don’t have any reception.’”
It was fitting that Angel was on this trip alone with his oldest son, Gabriel. They will embark on a more metaphoric journey together next week when Gabriel reports to the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Some 28 years after they selected Angel with a seventh-round draft pick, the Steelers took Gabriel in the sixth round this past Saturday.
Steel, it seems, runs in the Rubio family. But not as much as fire.
Not long after Angel Rubio’s football career ended 19 years ago, he quickly signed up to pursue a career as a firefighter.
Whereas Rubio’s pubic identity to that point was of a larger-than-life professional football player and 300-pound defensive tackle, today he is a different kind of superhero.
Rubio is a captain at Wentzville Fire Protection District in Missouri.
And Gabriel intends to follow his father in that career path.
“Unless he changes it, that’s always been his plan in our discussions that he’s going to play football for as long as he can or for as long as he wants to, and then when he’s ready he’ll retire and get into the fire service,” Angel Rubio said.
“Football players make excellent firefighters.”
The elder Rubio has over 16 years in the profession. He followed his father, who was a firefighter in Oakland, Calif. Gabriel’s official bio for Notre Dame football lists that he intended to major in fire science. Though the program was not offered, Gabriel Rubio graduated with a degree in psychology.
His father and predecessor as a draft pick with the Steelers (though he never appeared in a regular-season games for them), Angel Rubio was part of four NFL teams, the XFL’s Las Vegas Outlaws and four pro arena football teams before moving on at age 31.
All throughout, when someone asked him what his life plans were, the answer was becoming a firefighter. So when he was done with football, Angel Rubio spent the next three years going through both EMS Academy and the Fire Academy.
“It’s something that always appealed to me,” he said. “The camaraderie that you get in the fire service is similar to that of football. When you retire or are done playing, you do miss the intensity. You miss making the plays. You miss the hustle.
“But the No. 1 thing you miss is the locker room. And I’ve been fortunate enough to get into another career that has that same mentality. You are with these workers, these guys and gals, for 24, 48, sometimes 72 hours straight, and you learn to rely on each other and learn to trust one another through hard work, sweat, and quite frankly putting your life on the line. So it’s been fantastic for me.”
Gabriel has plenty of time to follow through on the firefighting pursuit. For now, he’s a 6-foot-5, 328-pound rookie defensive tackle whom the Steelers believe fits in perfectly in new coordinator Patrick Graham’s defense.
Steelers DC Patrick Graham on 6th-rd pick Notre Dame DL Gabe Rubio pic.twitter.com/it0LcdS1LF
— Chris Adamski (@C_AdamskiTrib) April 25, 2026
“He plays football the right way,” Graham said after the Steelers drafted Rubio. “He has the right demeanor.”
Sounds like a mindset that might translate as well into playing defensive tackle as it does to firefighting — or a mentality that was learned by example from a father.
Part of a family of five kids — an older sister and three younger brothers — Gabriel was with loved ones (including mom, Theresa) when he got the call from the Steelers that he’d been drafted.
Soon thereafter, during a conference call with Pittsburgh media — some of whom had been around for a similar call when his dad had been picked back in 1998 — Gabriel Rubio talked about what he’d learned from him.
“Effort and persistence are all things that can’t be taught but are great in value,” the younger Rubio said. “Definitely one thing about my game that I’ve always remembered from him is run to and through the pile, not just around it.”
Not surprising, considering the after-football vocation of the man who said it.
“There’s a great correlation between the work ethic that is required for a professional athlete versus the work ethic that’s required to be an outstanding firefighter,” Angel Rubio said. “It requires a strong mind, strong will, strong belief in yourself, commitment to the little things to accomplish a bigger goal. And then a commitment to your teammates to be able to rely on them and believe that they are going to do their job in the same way that you’re going to do your job to accomplish a goal.
“‘A win is a win,’ is what we say in the fire service. It’s the same thing I said when I played football. No matter how it comes, the ultimate goal is to get that W. Both Gabriel and (younger brother) Isaiah (also a college football player) have shared with me that (becoming a firefighter) is what their goal is. And I’ll support them along the way.”