Steve Sabol’s large, bright corner office at NFL Films headquarters in Mount Laurel, N.J., has two work stations: “my regular, everyday desk andanother for special projects, like the music for the Super Bowl.”
The office itself is remarkable for the lack of football memorabilia and the wealth of information: binders (No. 2, below), folders and boxes of paper and cards (No. 7, below) filled with thoughts, ideas, notes, scripts, inventories and interviews that catalog the season-by-season story of NFL Films.
“When you have done the same thing for 45 years, you collect a lot of dreck,” Sabol said. “I have a computer, but I prefer to work with note cards.”
1 — Heisman Trophy winner Johnny Lattner’s Notre Dame helmet. 3 — Autographed photo of Vince Lombardi from 1967 NFL championship; lamp bought by Sabol at a flea market. 4 — Of the 92 Emmy awards won by NFL Films, Sabol haswon 28.
5 — Commemorative footballs. 6 — Mike Singletary figurine. 8 — Framed photo of Steve and his father, Ed, and thefirst camera used by Ed (to film Steve’s youth games).
The anteroom is furnished with “incidental miscellaneous that’s related to the game of football,” Sabol said. “We have a reverence forthe irreverent.”
The CDs from which Sabol will select and edit the music forwhat he called “the road to the Super Bowl.”
A footballboard game (one of many on display) and football-themed books.
A mixed-media collage by Sabol; the rug, a gift from Mrs. EdSabol, was made for the fifth anniversary of NFL Films.
An Otto Graham lamp, companion piece to a Norm Van Brocklin lamp; a leather football helmet, figurines of Hank Stram and Jim Brown, and an Oklahoma Statemegaphone
