OPINION:
Last weekend the Pro Football Hall of Fame added 28 new enshrinees (“Peyton’s Place is Hall of Fame, with Woodson, Megatron,” Web, Aug. 8). None of them played for Washington, as the Hall again overlooked greats such as Joe Theismann, Mark Moseley, Pat Fischer, Brig Owens, Joe Jacoby, Gary Clark, Dave Butz and Dexter Manley.
However, one new enshrinee, NFL Films auteur Steve Sabol, had a huge impact on the way Redskins fans remember their team. He helped immortalize and mythologize professional football’s greatest moments, elevating its enduring images to high art and its greatest games to epic drama.
To appreciate Sabol’s talent, consider NFL Films’ Super Bowl XVII highlight film. In the fourth quarter, Washington took a 20-17 lead over Miami on John Riggins’ storied 43-yard touchdown run on fourth down. Then the Redskins regained the ball and controlled it for nearly seven minutes with a 12-play, run-heavy drive. How do you make that exciting?
This is the magic of Sabol’s NFL Films: You show Riggins’ runs in slow motion, interspersed with Dolphins head coach Don Shula perspiring, accompanied by the dramatic music of Graham De Wilde’s “Send Them Victorious.” You alternate John Facenda’s stirring narration (“No player ever carried the ball so often, or so far, in a Super Bowl”) with the enthusiastic radio commentary of Frank Herzog, Sam Huff and Sonny Jurgensen. Then, on the final play of “Washington’s procession into history,” as Theismann hits Charlie Brown for the game-clinching touchdown, you cue “Hail to the Redskins” as Washington wins its first world championship in 40 years.
No Redskins fan can watch that film without feeling chills down their spine. That’s why Sabol deservedly entered the Hall of Fame.
STEPHEN A. SILVER
San Francisco
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