The Pleasure of Remembering Steve “Sudden Death” Sabol
(Long before Rocky, body builder Steve Sabol was known as “Mr. Philadelphia.”)
During mid-summer of 1964, I was working out daily, running, doing push-ups, stretching, preparing for football practice at Colorado College (CC) in Colorado Springs. I had chosen the college because of its small size, reputation for education, and because I figured an undersized football player had a shot at playing college ball. Besides, I loved to ski and wanted to try my luck on the ski slopes in the Rockies.
That summer I happened to run across a magazine called “Sport.” There was a feature and picture of CC’s starting fullback and co-captain, Steve “Sudden Death” Sabol from Philadelphia, via “Possum Trot,” Mississippi. “Oh, oh,” I said to myself, “I’m in over my head.” I re-doubled my efforts and continued training.
Early on during two-a-days, as I remember, Sabol, an upperclassman, either got hurt or was affected by recurring hepatitis (possibly picked up from the college dining commons, which he despised). He left school to preserve his eligibility to play the next year. We finished with one win and seven losses, thanks to the famed “Toilet Bowl,” the season-ending game with Colorado School of Mines. Both Mines and CC entered the last game of the year with goose eggs in the win column. We won a low-scoring game fraught with errors and miscues but it was like winning the NFL championship for us.
Our head coach, Jerry Carle, used to encourage us by saying, “You’re small but you’re slow” or “you’re not talented but you don’t hit hard” and “if you’re only two touchdowns behind in the 4th quarter you can still win.” Line coach Frank Flood, a one-time heavyweight boxer from Pueblo Colorado, always marveled at his luck in landing a middle class job. Occasionally, during blocking drills, a football helmet might slide off a blocking dummy and shock Frank, who would drop the dummy and start throwing rights and lefts in a punch-drunk flashback to his career. He and his brother, according to legend, liked to hangout at cowboy bars and, back-to-back, take on all comers.
After I dropped out and moved to New Mexico, I once visited Frank. He asked me if there was much corruption in the state. “A little,” I said. “Nickel and dime stuff.” He nodded. “That’s because there are so many Catholics,” said the Irish-Catholic boxer.
Sabol returned to play during my sophomore year. His father, Big Ed, set up a charge account at the “Embers,” a local steak house, so Steve wouldn’t suffer from the rubbery and inedible pork chops served at the dining hall. We used to kid ourselves that the CC training table served the same food to students as it did for the athletes but ours was colder and older. Once, the dining hall served some crap and Steve began pounding on the table, screaming out the name of the food service manager, “Ptomaine” Torrens i.e. “Torrens, Torrens, Torrens.”
We won a couple of games and yours truly started on defense as a guard my sophomore year. Our linemen were smaller than the backs but tougher. Case in point the next year, Bob Bishop of Tierra Wood Stoves in Taos, started at offensive guard and was captain of the team. Judge Joe Caldwell of Taos, a back, Bishop’s roommate, saw his own career cut short when the trainer, Rosie Collins, ripped some duct tape off Joe’s foot, including a swath of skin, and ended the jurist’s football career. Or so the legends say.
I had a few good games my sophomore year and made a name for myself as a hell-raiser, which reputation appealed to Sabol. After the season, just before he dropped out for good, he invited four of us and our girlfriends over to his off-campus digs, for an evening of dining and football. One of our fraternity brothers, Gordon Aoyagi, served as houseboy. At this point I’m unsure of exactly who was there, but I think Stan Lathrop, starting offensive and defensive tackle, Bill Jacobson and maybe Ed Loosli, both football players from Southern Cal—and girl friends (the eventual mother of my child). After dining and drinking wine and beer, we began watching films of NFL championship games on the 16 mm projector. For a girl to win favor with Sabol, she had to master the intricacies of football.
In everyday conversation, Steve used a kind of mock-heroic language to discuss sports, especially football and relations with the opposite sex. I can still remember lines from the movies we watched that night: “Lou “The Toe” Groza, the most prolific scorer in pro football history; Johnny Unitas, whose mind and arm, make him the most valuable player in pro football; Paul Taylor goes hiking through the Vikings.” Steve’s colorful take on football was an antidote to the dull sports announcing on network television.
In the football program handed out to our 300 or so fans at Washburn Stadium, thanks to Steve’s influence, the ball player from Possum Trot, was joined by ball players from places like Bald Knob, West Virginia, and Gardnerville, Nevada, the latter my hometown. Like Steve said, coming from an impossible place meant I didn’t need to make anything up. In the program we juked the stats—weights, heights, and skills. It didn’t help us win games. My last full year, I think we won more than we lost but we had a helluva good time—lots of camaraderie.
After Steve left CC (without graduating), he and Big Ed, his Dad, pictured with Steve, helped turn the National Football League into America’s favorite spectator sport via NFL films. He gave several of his college friends jobs—a shot at careers in sport; some of these slackers made good. Occasionally Steve returned to CC, stayed at the Broadmoor, and introduced football players in tow to Coaches Carle and Flood as potential prospects for CC. After the coaches would start salivating over these physical specimens, he’d introduce them as so and so, who plays for Green Bay or the Philadelphia Eagles. Steve had imagination and humor, plus a love for the game that gave him inside access. More than anyone else, Steve helped turn pro-football into the mock-heroic form of popular culture that it is today.
Here’s to Sudden Death Sabol!
(1942–1212)