I never met Steve Sabol.
We never shared a drink or caught a game. I don’t know if he was a good friend, great father, or even a man of God.
And quite frankly, it doesn’t matter.
The only thing I need to know about Sabol, who passed away on Tuesday after battling brain cancer, is that he made my life a whole lot better. And if you think about it, he probably made yours better as well.
You see, Sabol, 69, along with his father, Ed, created NFL Films. Now I want all of you football fans to think about that last sentence for a second. … He created NFL Films.
In case you still do not realize, or fully appreciate, what that means, let me put it to you like this:
Without NFL Films, we’d never have the 65 Toss Power Trap or see what a party with Iron Mike Singletary would be like.
There’d be no Hard Knocks, or NFL Film Presents, and even the sport-highlight packages that we are used to seeing would have been far different. And by different, I mean far less entertaining.
To be more direct, NFL Films made a good game theater, and in doing so turned a sport into an institution.
As I was driving into work Wednesday morning, I heard someone describe Sabol as the Steve Jobs of football. I find that comparison a little disrespectful of Sabol.
I don’t know about you, but NFL Films is the single biggest reason why a majority of my dreams are accompanied by a score created by Sam Spence and narrated by the man with the greatest voice in the history of voices – John Facenda. Just the other night, soon after my eyes closed and REM kicked in, I found myself running away from Jason Voorhees when all of the sudden, Facenda’s voice arose from the campsite like some omnipresent deity.
I don’t know exactly what he said, but it went something like this:
Chad dashed and darted
through the trees
The camp was roaring with thunder
And just when the prey thought all was safe
Jason brought the fat man asunder.
To be honest, if it wasn’t for NFL films, this kid from the trailer parks of Mattawan, Mich., wouldn’t even have known what orchestra music was, much less the importance of a good narrator.
So even though I may not cry over Sabol’s passing, I will take some time to pay my respects. And if you football fans out there in Jabber Nation have any sense of loyalty and an ounce of gratefulness, you’ll take a few moments and do the same.
RIP Steve. Thanks for making the world’s great game that much greater and filling so many hours of my life with film and football.
If you have any comments on this or anything to do with sports, contact me at chad.t.jones.civ@mail.mil.
