Nfl Films

Overhead, on two giant TV monitors, images of Super Bowl XXI flickered in the darkness of the editing room. There went New York Giants running back Joe Morris, cutting left, then right. Just below, watching Morris' every move, two film and sound editors perched before one of the most sophisticated audio boards money can buy, silently sliding control buttons. And about 35 feet away, tucked in a soundproof recording booth, Pat Summerall, CBS's premier football play-by-play man, glanced down at his script.

Florence football players will always be part of The Pit. Now, The Pit will be part of NFL Films lore. Florence will be part of Sunday morning's NFL Films Presents -Traditions, a show on different high school traditions across the country that will air on Channel 29 at 10:30. The Florence segment runs about seven minutes, and shows different scenes of the tiny town shot during Thanksgiving week. The interviews show the pride that the players, coaches and fans have for their team and town.

Arthur Spieller, 79, of Broomall, who won six Emmy awards as a cameraman for NFL Films and who filmed every one of the first 31 Super Bowls, died of heart failure Sept. 19 at home. The first title game was in 1967 between the Green Bay Packers and the Kansas City Chiefs in a matchup that was called, at the time, the NFL-AFL World Championship Game. The next season, Mr. Spieller worked the NFL Championship game that was to become known as the Ice Bowl. The game - in Green Bay, Wis., between the Packers and the Dallas Cowboys - was played in temperatures that reached 15 degrees below zero.

IF YOU WERE going to follow John Facenda on the air, you had to have a great voice. Maybe nobody could match the legendary Facenda, whose familiar baritone was called the "voice of God" when he broadcast for NFL Films. But Jeff Kaye brought it off. After Facenda died in 1984, Jeff became the voice of NFL Films, lending his own sonorous baritone to the pro-football features of the Mount Laurel, N.J.-based company. Maybe not quite God, but close to it. "I can say to this day, when I look at some of the shows Jeff narrated over the years, I am still fascinated by the way he told a story," said Kevin McLoughlin, director of post-production for NFL Films.

The Philadelphia Festival of World Cinema has a well-deserved reputation for searching out worthwhile movies from every corner of the globe. This year the organizers looked in the end zone. One of the highlights among the festival's dizzying array of movies is a salute to NFL Films, the Mount Laurel-based company that began 30 years ago with one hand-held 16mm camera and now flourishes as a dominant sports-media conglomerate. It has, of course, long been acknowledged that NFL Films and the many pioneering and innovative techniques it developed to put the viewer in the action on the field and catch the emotions on the sidelines played a key role in pro football's rise to its current popularity: Just compare the modest hoopla that surrounded the first Super Bowl with the extravagant January spectacle it has become.

The sadness wasn't confined to the offices of Citizens Bank Park or the world of baseball yesterday. News of Harry Kalas' death also hit home and hit hard across the river at the NFL Films home office in Mount Laurel. Steve Sabol, the president of the company founded by his father, Ed, in 1962, left work in the early afternoon only to return when he learned that Kalas had collapsed and died a few hours before the start of the Phillies' game against the Washington Nationals.

The spiral is perfect, the ball launched by a buggy-whip arm, and it arcs in majestic slow motion across a cobalt sky. Two are in lockstep pursuit of it, receiver and defender, each calculating where their thunderous intersection will be reached, and you see them rising and grasping as one, and it is all so real that you swear that you are, well, there. Right there! And Steve Sabol would smile a smile of modesty and satisfaction and lean back and thank you. On behalf of NFL Films and its gazillion Emmys, we thank you. To quote the song: Nobody does it better.

Steve Sabol, the executive vice president of NFL Films, recalls that the company's selection of the late John Facenda to become its "voice" back in 1964 was not a very popular one. "A lot of people around the league wanted a sportscaster instead," said Sabol. "You know, a Chris Schenkel or a Curt Gowdy, who were both big at the time and associated with the sport. But we wanted something different. As a kid growing up in Philadelphia, Facenda (then the anchor for the top-rated WCAU TV news)

Using audiovisual technology in corporate meetings will be the topic when Hal Lipman, executive director of sales for NFL Films, addresses the Marketing, Advertising and Communications Club at 12:30 p.m. June 21 in the Homestead Restaurant on Dresher Road in Horsham. A new technique called Wavefront 3D Animation, as well as other techniques for improving meetings, will be discussed by Lipman. Lunch is $17 for members and $22 for nonmembers. Membership in the group is $50 annually.

SOME GUYS have all the luck. Sex.com is offering to match Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski's base salary of $3.75 million if he films a sex scene with porn star Bibi Jones. Why Jones? Well, the two have a fleeting relationship of sorts. In 2011, Jones posted photos of her and Gronk on her Twitter account. Apparently, Jones is planning a comeback in the adult film business - who knew she was gone? - and wants Gronk to help relaunch her career. A news release from the site reads: "In light of Bibi Jones' return to performing in adult films, Sex.com would like to offer Rob Gronkowski a chance to perform with her in a scene once his forearm has healed.

ADD JUNIOR SEAU'S family to the thousands of people who are suing the NFL over the long-term damage caused by concussions. Seau's ex-wife and four children sued the league Wednesday, saying the former linebacker's suicide was the result of brain disease caused by violent hits he sustained while playing football. The wrongful-death lawsuit, filed in California Superior Court in San Diego, blames the NFL for its "acts or omissions" that hid the dangers of repetitive blows to the head.

IF YOU WERE going to follow John Facenda on the air, you had to have a great voice. Maybe nobody could match the legendary Facenda, whose familiar baritone was called the "voice of God" when he broadcast for NFL Films. But Jeff Kaye brought it off. After Facenda died in 1984, Jeff became the voice of NFL Films, lending his own sonorous baritone to the pro-football features of the Mount Laurel, N.J.-based company. Maybe not quite God, but close to it. "I can say to this day, when I look at some of the shows Jeff narrated over the years, I am still fascinated by the way he told a story," said Kevin McLoughlin, director of post-production for NFL Films.

More lockout fallout *  ("Will anyone blink in time this season?" Sept. 16) These negotiations are like war. After the very first meeting, the players union should have put Crosby in front of a camera at a press conference and have him go all doom and gloom and cancel all further talks. Owners always win in this because they know the players want to play. The Pink Floyd Philly.com/Sports Donald Fehr vs. Gary Bettman. You have a better shot of Netanyahu and Ahmadinejad getting together for peace talks!

The spiral is perfect, the ball launched by a buggy-whip arm, and it arcs in majestic slow motion across a cobalt sky. Two are in lockstep pursuit of it, receiver and defender, each calculating where their thunderous intersection will be reached, and you see them rising and grasping as one, and it is all so real that you swear that you are, well, there. Right there! And Steve Sabol would smile a smile of modesty and satisfaction and lean back and thank you. On behalf of NFL Films and its gazillion Emmys, we thank you. To quote the song: Nobody does it better.

STEVE SABOL freely used the word "mythologize" to describe what he and NFL Films did for the National Football League. He was right, too. The common understanding of the word "myth" these days somehow connotes to "false," which is the problem. Not to go all Merriam-Webster on you, but this is the real definition of "myth": "a usually traditional story of ostensibly historical events that serves to unfold part of the world view of a people or explain a practice, belief, or natural phenomenon"   This is exactly what Steve Sabol did. He wrote stories, with words and video and sound and music.

STEVE SABOL took everything seriously except himself. He was a character, but not a buffoon. He was colorful, but respectful. Sabol was magna cum laude at the Haverford School when his life took an odd turn. He was rejected by Harvard and went to tiny Colorado College, where his zest for life flourished. In a 1982 interview with Daily News columnist Tom Cushman, Sabol talked about some of the pranks he was able to pull. Usually, he was his own target. Remember, this was the early 1960s, so some of this stuff wouldn't fly today.

Steve Sabol, an art history major and football star in college who combined those two passions to help transform the family business, NFL Films, into a modern mythmaking marvel, died Tuesday at 69. Mr. Sabol had been battling brain cancer since 2011. An inoperable tumor had been discovered just days after his father, Ed, the NFL Films founder, was elected to Pro Football's Hall of Fame. A lifelong Philadelphia-area resident who never lost his accent or his boyish idealism, Mr. Sabol forever changed the way Americans view their sports.

Steve Sabol, 69, an art history major and football star in college who combined those two passions to help transform the family business, NFL Films, into a modern mythmaking marvel, died Tuesday, Sept. 18. He had been battling brain cancer since 2011. An inoperable tumor had been discovered just days after his father, Ed, the NFL Films founder, was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. A lifelong Philadelphia-area resident who never lost his accent or his boyish idealism, Mr. Sabol forever changed the way Americans view their sports.

Leonard Weaver put his hand into the white football helmet with the NFL crest emblazoned on the side. He pushed around a few crumpled pieces of paper before landing on one. He pulled it up and laughed as he read it aloud. "Which division is going to be the toughest?" He playfully pushed Chad Brown, a former linebacker. "The toughest?" he asked rhetorically. "The NFC East. Know why, Chad?" Brown shook his head. " 'Cause my Eagles play in the NFC East. " Perhaps Weaver, the former all-pro fullback with the Eagles, has a thing or two to learn about being an unbiased analyst.