Steve Sabol

[HarveyWallbangers]

Good stuff from Sabol about the '60s Packers, and I agree with him about the '62 Packers.

Packers spirit fueled NFL films, boss says
By Warren Gerds, Green Bay Press Gazette

Ever since Blair Motion Pictures won the rights to film the 1962 National Football League Championship Game, Steve Sabol has had an affinity for the Green Bay Packers.

The Packers beat the New York Giants, 16-7, and what would become NFL Films was on its way — filming every game and putting together highlight packages, commercials and specials that helped drive the league’s success.

Steve Sabol’s father, Ed, founded the company. Steve Sabol worked at the 1962 championship as a cameraman.

“To me, that was colder than the Ice Bowl,” he said. “Yankee Stadium, 16-7, (lineman) Jerry Kramer kicking the three field goals to win that game.”

Sabol is easily excited when rolling out stories about the Packers. He’s still with NFL Films, as president.

“That was the only game that I ever remember it being so cold, including the Ice Bowl, that Lombardi wore the Packer parka over his jacket. In the Ice Bowl, he wore the traditional camel’s hair overcoat.”

Sabol is on the phone answering questions about the 1966 Packers team, which is featured Tuesday on NFL Network as the Super Bowl champion team ranked No. 6 by a panel of league experts.

In Sabol’s heart, the ’62 team would have won top honors among panelists had all NFL champion teams been included. The ’66 team also is among his favorites.

“It’s a very biased opinion coming from here, Mount Laurel, N.J., starting with the fact that (Hall of Fame player) Herb Adderley and I competed against each other in high school,” Sabol said.

Adderley played for a powerhouse in Philadelphia.

“They had mustaches and sideburns,” Sabol said. “They played our little prep school, prissy Haverford School. We were a bunch of pasty little guys, and we upset them, 19-13 — the greatest upset in Pennsylvania — and I never let Herb Adderley forget it.”

A few years later in Green Bay, Sabol recalled, Adderley introduced him around as a friend and opened doors to the likes of Bart Starr, Jim Taylor, Paul Hornung and Vince Lombardi.

Lombardi stories fall from Sabol like rain:

# First meeting with the “colossus,” as a 24-year-old cameraman/interviewer who arrived at the Packers office early and parked close so equipment wouldn’t have to be carried far:

“The first words I hear out of his mouth were, ‘Who the hell is in my parking place?’”

# Putting together the season highlights for the ’66 Packers:

“Here’s a guy that’s 24 years old and having Coach Lombardi on the phone, ‘What are you saying about this? Well, take that word out.’ ‘You can’t say this about Boyd Dowler.’ And Bart Starr is this and that.”

# Being present for the “5 O’Clock Club” with Lombardi and staff after practices:

“The drinks he had were ‘See-Throughs,’ which was just vodka on ice.”

# Seeing calisthenics at training camp at St. Norbert College with a feisty terrier running from player to player and pestering them:

“Lombardi comes out. He stands in front of the calisthenics with his hands behind his back. All of a sudden you see Lombardi fixated on this dog, and then he just points at the dog and says, ‘Get off the field,’ and the dog ran off the field. The fans went crazy.”

# Being one of the few people in the league to support NFL Films’ choice of John Facenda as the dramatic, guts-and-glory narrator:

“Lombardi said, ‘I think that guy with the voice is great,’ and that was a big help to us.”

Sabol’s fondness for the Glory Years Packers is reasoned.

“The Packers of that era are still the most romantic team of legend in NFL history,” Sabol said. “You have maybe greater dynasties — the 49ers dynasty with Bill Walsh, the Steelers, the Cowboys — but none of them compare with that Packer team and the romance of this little team and this martinet of a coach who was from the East Coast driving these guys in this small town through the bitter cold.

“They were like the little David who became the lion. It was a tremendous story, and it was a story we took and really mythologized it.

“We came up with the frozen tundra, the ice bucket chill of a Wisconsin winter, the chilling championship. A lot of those phrases all originated around that Packer team. And Lombardi to me is the patron saint of professional football.”

Lombardi and the Packers were a filmmaker’s dream, Sabol said.

“I think nothing lasts unless it can be expressed in terms of human spirit,” he said. “That’s what made that team great …

“(W)hen you thought about the Packers, that team you thought about had certain values — self-denial, teamwork and being part of something larger that yourself and being proud of it.

“That was the first time anybody equated a football team with these kind of values — that it wasn’t X’s and O’s, and it wasn’t who was the fastest. It was things that are clichés now — character, mental toughness. But it also was that thing about caring for each other, the love for each other …

“There were some deeper forces at work when you watched this team play.”

[MadtownPacker]

All of a sudden you see Lombardi fixated on this dog, and then he just points at the dog and says, ‘Get off the field,’ and the dog ran off the field. The fans went crazy.”As good as a read as this is, this part is the stuff you would never get in todays reporting. Also a reminder why you should get NFL Network. Gonna have to check this out tomorrow.

[packinpatland]

What a hoot that he played against Adderly.

[chewy-bacca]

man, I hope someone recs. this and posts it for download for all us suckers w\o NFLN. Sounds like a heck of a story.