Sports broadcasting pioneer and President of NFL Films Steve Sabol died Tuesday after an 18-month battle with brain cancer. Sabol was 69.
Sabol was the driving force behind what football fans see today.
"He took a passion for football and a passion for film and he humanized a sport that had no human element whatsoever" said Greg Cosell who worked with Sabol for 33 years at NFL Films.
Sabol along with his father Ed, started NFL Films when they bought the rights to the 1962 NFL Championship game for $12,000. The business started in a small building on 13th and Vine in Philadelphia and has blossomed into a media empire now headquartered in Mt. Laurel, NJ.
Fox 29 spoke with Sabol back in 1997.
"It began on 13th St. In Philadelphia. I always remember we were right above a laundromat so we had our clothes clean..it was a little building" Sabol told us.
Now flags fly at half staff at NFL Films headquarters as colleagues remember the man who started it all.
"It's not from a big business standpoint., it's more of a deeply personal level that I'm not going to see him walk the halls of NFL films again" said Cosell.
Using dramatic orchestral arrangements and poetic narration by broadcasting legend john facenda--Sabol brought football to life. Former Eagles quarterback turned TV analyst Ron Jaworski says Sabol helped him launch a new career after football.
"I would not be where I am as an NFL analyst if it were not for Steve sabol. He was my mentor. He was my counselor he was my advisor for the last 22 years. I'm going to miss him dearly" said Jaworski.
"I think NFL films could be the number one reason the NFL has reached the level that it has"said Cosell.
Sabol's legacy friends say-will be his vision he told us in 1997 when he said
"To portray professional football the same way Hollywood portrayed fiction and that is with a certain flair"
Sabol is survived by his wife, Penny; his son, Casey; his parents, Audrey and Ed; and his sister, Blair. The NFL said there would be a private funeral.
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