I don’t know how the news of Steve Sabol’s death is traveling outside Philadelphia where chatter on sports-talk radio this morning was all about Sabol’s work in taking the National Football League from a sport like professional hockey into the prime-time attraction that it is today. But word of his death did register with me since Sabol was one of my few brushes with greatness.
Back in my junior year at Woodrow Wilson High, one of my history teachers, obviously looking for a day off without having to call in sick, had Sabol come to campus and speak to various classes. At the time NFL Films was still a relatively new venture, but it was largely responsible for that collection of highlight footage that ESPN would take over. It is an indication of how small-time the effort was that Sabol would mix with ne’er do well youths in Lower Bucks County. But by mythologizing the sport — Sabol played football at Colorado State while majoring in art history — he helped turn the NFL into the corporate behemoth it now is. I wonder if he had regrets.
Fast forward five years. During my junior and senior years at Temple, while studying film — does “the cinema” sound less dilettantish? — I worked for Steve Sabol. At their center city facility in Philadelphia, I mixed chemicals for the film processors between midnight and 8:00 so that the writers and editors could prepare those highlight reels that Howard Cosell announced. Of course, the real voice of NFL Films was John Facenda, the television news anchor for Channel 10 in Philadelphia. Later Sabol would use other Philadelphia voices, like Harry Kalas.
Segments from old soundtracks prompted me to buy one of the cd’s with the remarkably good music that turned football into art. (If readers want proof that my better half doesn’t read Old Life, admission of on-line purchases has to be it.) Folks born after 1970 can likely not imagine a time when professional football was almost as beautiful as it was modest. The irony is that Steve Sabol may have been so accomplished at his craft that he helped turn the NFL into something almost unwatchable (not to mention those vexing violations of the Lord’s Day).
Old Life 
Wow – what a great post. I have vivid memories of watching “Inside the NFL” on HBO as a kid. Magical stuff. Fascinating that you worked for him. You are certainly a Zelig-like figure…
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You guys and your Philadephio-centric news. What’s next–an update on the Phillies NL Wild Card standings?
First Dr. Hart writes a global history of calvinism and then admits he is responsible for the masses watching football on prime (fourth commandment) time.
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hbo, kid? how old are you, Erik? how old is hbo?
“Steve Sabol’s father, Ed, was a dissatisfied overcoat salesman from Philadelphia who started the company on a shoestring, a Bell & Howell handheld movie camera that he had been given as a wedding gift and all the cash he had, a little of it borrowed. Bob Costas told me that when it came to empire building, Ed Sabol was Philip of Macedon and that Steve — who had carried the company beyond even his father’s wildest expectations into a multibillion dollar operation – was Alexander.
Joe Montana once told me “I don’t know if I remember that pass to Dwight Clark”– that won the 1982 NFC championship game for the San Francisco Forty-Niners – “or if I just remember it the way NFL Films showed it.” Every football fan knows the play: Montana is being rushed towards the sidelines by Cowboy linemen. Then the camera pulls back to a camera in the back of the end zone, which shows Clark, leaping, grabbing the ball just inches from the hands of the Dallas defenders. Sabol called it “The Catch,” and that’s the name we remember it by as well.
http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2012/09/steve_sabol_def.php
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I loved those NFL Blooper videos Steve would put together way back when. Sorry to hear of his passing. Do you know if he was a man of faith in Christ?
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McMark, thanks for that link. It’s a good piece. It makes me think that Secret Cinema, a Philadelphia institution that sponsors of occasional viewings of old 16mm films, should have a program devoted to Sabol and NFL Films.
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Erik, it wasn’t like Steve was just down the hall from the lab where I worked. But he was technically my boss.
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I’m 42 so this would have been in the 80s. HBO made me the man I am today — maybe not such a good thing!
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Unless you’ve got an office pool or better(ahem) going, why would anybody watch pro football?
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@ Dr. Hart — I grew up on NFL Films, which in my mind is forever marked by that heroic soundtrack they used for the Oakland Raiders. Autumn chill fills the air. . .
Steve Sabol left his mark on the world and I was very sorry to hear of his passing. Life is so uncertain.
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Who did one study when studying film back when you were in college? What did you hope to do with that degree? I am an unofficial film studies major. I ought to at least have my masters by now…
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I took my son to see “Chinatown” on the big screen last week. Tonight I wanted to take him to see “The Birds” but he would rather visit a friend’s youth group. Tomorrow we can see “Bridge on the River Kwai” and Friday night the wife and I are going to see “The Master”.
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Erik, in my Film Appreciation course I recall The Battleship Potemkin, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Citizen Kane, and a Buster Keaton film. I don’t recall whether Fanny & Alexander (Bergman) was in-class or an optional assignment.I think we also did “What’s Opera, Doc?” (B. Bunny). Hey, “The Sandlot” is on TV right now – what a great picture of an American boy’s childhood.
Maybe our kids are going to the same youth group tonght…
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My kid’s going to an E-Free Youth Group in Huxley so I doubt it. Kane & part of the Sandlot are the only ones I’ve seen of those. I’m weak pre-1960s.
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I struggle with Studio Code era movies. I like gritty realism. Started watching “Goodfellas” for the umpteenth time the other night. “As far back as I can remember I always wanted to be a gangster.” That is Scorsese’s best movie by a longshot. Better than “The Departed”.
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Erik, the particular films were used to show the flow of cinematic history and the development of various techniques. I think Hitchcock’s The Rear Window was in there, too.
Right, Huxley would be a stretch. The PCA youth group for mine.
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“The Autumn wind is a raider….”
My pre-Christian Sunday morning litany in the 60s (as I recall it):
1) The Indian on the test pattern (B&W)
2) The jets (F4s) screaming across the sky during the national anthem
3) The Barbershop quartet
4) Davy and Goliath (Lutheran claymation)
5) NFL highlights featuring Sabol’s editing and John Facenda’s voice. “The Voice.”
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I also remember some kind of Notre Dame football highlight show on Sunday mornings but that would have been later. Of course in Iowa we also had “Let’s Go Bowling”.
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Erik, HBO in the 80s was so bourgeois. My folks drew the line at Atari™. Thankfully, though, I had friends with HBO-y folks and so could bring birthday parties up a few notches with things like “The Postman Always Rings Twice” (my inner 10-year-old has never fully sorted out how to think of Jessica Lange). But also, speaking of football, things like George Carlin’s “Baseball v. Football” routine. Faint-hearted baseball fans may want to look away:
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“Grease”, “Meatballs”, “Used Cars”, “Serial”, “Fast Times at Ridgemont High”, “Vacation”, “A Clockwork Orange”, “American Graffiti”, “Monty Python and the Holy Grail”, “Animal House”, “Saturday Night Fever”, “Heaven Can Wait”, “Superman”, and “Airplane!” are some of the movies I watched multiple times on HBO as a kid. I only saw “Postman” for the first time a couple of months ago. My Lange/Postman was Angie Dickinson in “Dressed to Kill”. Way too much for a 12 year old to process there. I had to go back and watch it again as an adult to have closure. We also had the Playboy Channel (not as subscribers — but somehow it came through) and that was not a positive part of my junior high experience. It makes we wonder how young boys are dealing with all of the pornography that is all over the internet today. Maybe it’s so common it has lost some of its allure. I hope so.
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Erik, at Temple we took film theory and saw the classics, but the program also featured a production side and so I went in that direction, hoping I’d be an Indy film maker. One of our profs was an experimental film maker and I liked that stuff, but it’s hard to find even at film festivals.
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Scott, we were only allowed to hear Family Radio on Sunday mornings. Guess that’s why I’m more sanctified than you.
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Dr Hart,
A Council Rock farm boy here
You may like this site written by a couple of Eagles beat reporters (if you have time).
http://www.phillymag.com/eagles/
The All-22 posts and pictures are a huge improvement from the stills of Eagles games that the Bulletin produced when I was a kid in the 60’s
Thanks for your responses to Bryan Cross
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D.G. – You could have been the next John Cassavetes. I don’t know if you’re married to a Gena Rowlands, though.
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