RIP Steve Sabol

Itssoeasy

The football world says goodbye to a legend of the sport on Tuesday. Steve Sabol, President of NFL Films, has died just weeks away from 70th birthday after an 18 month battle with brain cancer.

Sabol took over the mantle of NFL Films President in 1985 from his father Ed, who founded the company. Steve learned in March of 2011 that he had a brain tumor that can't be removed. He introduced his father during Ed's emotional enshrinement into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in August of 2011. Sabol is survived by his wife, Penny, his son Casey, his parents Audrey and Ed, and his sister Blair.

"Steve was the creative genius behind NFL Films' remarkable work," NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said Tuesday in an email to NFL personnel. "Steve's passion for football was matched only by his talent and energy. He was a major contributor to the success of the NFL, a man who changed the way we looked at football and sports, and a great friend. His legacy is assured.

"Steve was an incredible visionary. He spent 50 years at the NFL and changed the way we see pro football. So when you're watching the games this week, it's worth remembering just how much Steve contributed to the way we think, see, and love our game."

Generations of NFL fans learned to love the game of football through the lens of Ed and Steve Sabol. Steve started out as a cameraman for the company before eventually running the company.

"We all realized pretty quickly that Steve was the force behind what we were doing here ," the NFL Films' head of cinematography Hank McElwee head of cinematography said this year. "The pictures. Big Ed had the idea and he sold the owners on it, but when it came to the actual vision of this company, without a doubt it was Steve. Steve saw things in a unique way that every network is copying right now."

Steve Sabol won over 40 Emmy awards and oversaw 107 Emmys for NFL Films. He was the Sporting News 2002' "Sports Executive of the Year." He was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award in 2003. The company broke ground as the first to wire players and coaches for sound. It revolutionized how music was used with sports films. It was the first to use ground-level slow motion and montage editing in sports. So much of what we see in sports television came directly from the Sabols. He straddled the line between artist and executive.

NFL Films was a family company in the truest sense. That's why it feels like the NFL is losing a member of its family today. Sabol and his father spent their lives glorifying the game.

"My dad has a great expression," Sabol said when his father's induction was announced. "Tell me a fact, and I'll learn. Tell me a truth and I'll believe. But tell me a story and it will live in my heart forever. And now my Dad's story will be in Canton and hopefully that will live forever too."

The story of the NFL can't be told without Steve Sabol. May he rest in peace.

The family has requested that any donations be sent to the Jefferson Foundation for Brain Tumor Research, c/o Lindsey Walker, 925 Chestnut Street, Suite 110, Philadelphia, PA 19107.

By Gregg Rosenthal

Very sad. Anyone who has the americas game boxset knows what the sabol family and NFL films have done for football.

CoachTO

A True Legend, R.I.P Steve.

Son Of A Vidic

Sad to lose a true NFL visionary and pioneer, RIP Steve.

Itssoeasy

http://www.nfl.com/videos/nfl-videos/0ap2000000063280/Remembering-Steve-Sabol?module=HP11_headline_stack

Whether you like Rich Eisen or not that was hard to watch.

Syferus

Usually mix Ed and Steve up. Thought it was the father, Ed, until I clicked through. Steve did great work but it was Ed Sabol that was the pioneer. To be 96 and burying your son must be an incredibly surreal experience. Best wishes to the family.

davyjose

NFL owe a lot to him and his father.

RIP

Silver-Tiger

Itssoeasy wrote: »

http://www.nfl.com/videos/nfl-videos/0ap2000000063280/Remembering-Steve-Sabol?module=HP11_headline_stack

Whether you like Rich Eisen or not that was hard to watch.

WHAT?

Who doesn't like Rich Eisen?

nfl and the nfls fans owe him a lot great great man who did more behind the scenes than most realise. on top of all that he seemed like a genuinely down to earth man and an absolute gentleman who appreciated the job he was in a rarity in the modern nfl

rip steve you will be missed we all saw what you mean to the organisation as an employee and a person in that rich eisen interview

Chardee MacDennis

one of the guys on NFL-Ireland wrote a very nice piece about Sabol

http://nfl-ireland.com/2012/09/a-tribute-to-steve-sabol/ wrote:

It wasn’t until I got a copy of Madden 2003 that I discovered NFL and it wasn’t until much later than that, during a deferral year of college, that I truly got into the sport. I was battling an anxiety disorder and on more medication than I felt comfortable with. My days didn’t have much purpose and after a bout of watching some Friday Night Lights DVDs, I decided to check up on the team I used to play as in the old videogame, the New York Giants. I rooted for them purely based on the colour of their jerseys, a nice royal blue. When you’re a kid born from a country other than the US, you can afford such luxury choices. I was lucky not to be one born into a miserable fandom, passed down via geography and generation.

Some highlight reels on NFL.com didn’t really do much for me. Gone were the players I remembered from the Playstation, long since replaced in the personnel-turnover prone way of sports. Instead reigned some unfamiliar faces and some difficult to pronounce names. After some mindless clicking and meandering through several web paths, I arrived on something called “Game of the Week”. I thought; “Here would be a good place to guarantee something interesting”. And I was right.

One of the first links featured my Giants, in a Super Bowl that I had stayed up late watching with my brother two years previous. Back then we were merely watching it to stay up late, to sound cool the next day yawning as you nonchalantly explained the reason you couldn’t keep your eyes open for first period. Now though, I was faced with what seemed to be an extended highlight reel of a game I had already sat through. I say this as seriously as possible, and some of you may question the relative impact that this actually had on me, but clicking on that link was one of the most significant decisions in my creative life. I’m currently in my fourth year of studying photography in Dublin Institute of Technology. I’ve always had a passion for image making, growing up drawing as much as I could and then moving to photography when my parents bought me a small point-and-shoot camera as a Christmas present in 2005. What immediately grasped me when it came to this video though, was the fact that it was unlike any piece of sports footage I had ever come across. It had staggeringly vivid colours, it had a true affinity for great imagery and most of all, it had a story. It was fine-art documentary filmmaking, it just so happened that the subject was football. By god, they even filmed it all on analogue equipment. As a photographer with a penchant for shooting film, you must understand that this was a big deal for me.

I spent the next couple of hours watching “Game of the Week”, then several hours the next day, and so on until I was out of things to watch. After that I discovered “America’s Game”, an hour long documentary detailing each year’s Super Bowl champion team. I found one episode listed in the TV listings for Sky Sports and before long I found myself looking to watch full games of a sport I had never followed before. I knew the stories behind the different franchises; the folklore of undefeated Dolphins and the strength of the Pittsburgh Steel Curtain. I hadn’t even seen a full game yet and I was well versed on its history. The first game I seriously watched in full, and for a reason other than staying up later than normal, was a Thursday night match-up between the San Francisco 49ers and the Chicago Bears. Immediately I was drawn to the story of Mike Singletary, a former stalwart of the revered ’85 Bears, now a head coach facing his former team in the spotlight of prime-time television. The game was a low scoring affair finishing up 10-6, with several Jay Cutler interceptions costing his team a victory. Overall though, it was bad football, but not once would I have considered myself bored. The long drawn out narratives I concocted in my head kept me absolutely rapt. I wanted to know what it felt like being on that coaching side of the ball, how it was different to playing, how it felt to be a quarterback and cost your team the game, what it was like to make a clutch interception and seal the win for your team. It’s the stories that keep you hooked. It’s like sugar, it’s like a drug. You want to see where these things develop and what they lead to. It’s what network television struggle to do each and every week with clichés and overtold anecdotes. It’s what NFL Films excels at.

Steve Sabol, president of NFL Films passed away today after a long battle with brain cancer; a cruel and demeaning condition that will strip even the hardest of men of dignity. In March of last year, Sports Illustrated writer Peter King posted on his twitter that Sabol had gone into hospital to receive treatment and provided an email address for people to send on well wishes to the man. I didn’t know Steve Sabol as a person, but what I did know was his work, and what it did for me during a year in which I felt my worst. I decided to send him an email.

This evening, just as I sat down after eating a delicious soup for dinner, I checked my Twitter feed. It was filled with condolence messages for the recently deceased Sabol. I was crushed. I didn’t know what to do with myself so I opened up a word processor and began to write this. There are a huge number of NFL players I admire, but none as much as the man who was responsible for documenting them. He literally had my number one dream job. As a kid, I lost another hero of mine, Richard Burns, a rally driver to the same thing that that claimed Sabol. I remember crying and hugging my mom in the garden as I told her what I had found out. Today, I’m older, but I cannot guarantee that this will not impact me just as much in the next few hours. At 69 years old, Steve Sabol was a lot older than Richard Burns but I’m sure in no way did he lack any less spirit. At 69 years old, he was only a few years older than what my father currently is. At 69 years old, he was too young to die.

Here is the email I sent on March 19th 2011 to the address provided by Peter King.

Dear Mr.Sabol,

You’ve been a huge inspiration for me the past few years. I am a 21 year old photography student in Dublin, Ireland who just so happens to also have a huge passion for the NFL and more specifically, my beloved New York Giants. To see someone be able to do the things you do with NFL Films is truly astounding. You have no idea how much someone like me appreciates the difference between the analogue film you use and the eternally inferior digital counterpart. The “Game of the Week” featuring the 2007 NYG vs. Patriots Super Bowl, is easily one of the most beautiful pieces of art and documentation that I have ever seen.

To hear that you have fallen on ill health is a hard thing to swallow. I am not a religious man Mr.Sabol, so I have no bible verse to help you. Though towards the end of close Giants games, I do find myself wishing, to whoever could grant such a thing as a fourth quarter defensive stand, to just help me out this one time. I have the same wishes for you sir and just like the Giants players trying to hold on to their lead, there isn’t a single moment where I don’t think you’re not capable of fulfilling what is needed, for pushing that little bit more, for that strength, and again, just like those defensive Giants, you’re not alone on your field.

Yours sincerely,
Alex Sinclair

While today we mourn the loss of Steve Sabol, we must also remember the courage of his struggle and the brilliance of his work. Rest in peace. You will not be forgotten.

me-skywalker

RIP

I love the NFL films work. The presentation is always top quality. The material relevant and the backdrop and stories always interesting. You can see great pride in professionalism and integerity to produce an honest piece of film and get behind the scene's. From the score, the visualisation of plays, the unheard questions teasing the story from the characters and the whole package it really has desered all the praise and thanks to both Sabols.

Itssoeasy

Silver-Tiger wrote: »

WHAT?

Who doesn't like Rich Eisen?

I'm a huge fan but I've seen people who dislike his podcast and the way he does it and by extension Mr. Eisen. I thought his podcast the day Steve Sabol died was superb.

Chardee MacDennis

Itssoeasy wrote: »

I'm a huge fan but I've seen people who dislike his podcast and the way he does it and by extension Mr. Eisen. I thought his podcast the day Steve Sabol died was superb.

yup hate the podcast, i'm listening for football not idle chit chat and movie reviews - Rich is great though!