He attended Colorado College, where he majored in art history and was an All-Rocky Mountain Conference[3] football as a running back[4] and was a member of Kappa Sigma fraternity.

"[8] This company eventually grew into NFL Films, with Sabol serving mainly as a cameraman, editor, and writer in the 1960s and 1970s.

When ESPN was founded in 1979, they soon signed NFL Films as a production company and Sabol became an on-air personality in the 1980s.

[11] NFL Films was the first company to wire coaches and players for sound as well as the first to use slow motion and montage editing in sports.

[citation needed] Sabol and his father, Ed, were honored in 2003 with the Lifetime Achievement Emmy from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences for "revolutionizing the way America watches football and setting the standard in sports filmmaking.

"[citation needed] In 2007, the Pro Football Hall of Fame honored Sabol with the Dan Reeves Pioneer Award.

[15] Sabol was the author of the poem "The Autumn Wind", later adopted by the Oakland Raiders as an unofficial anthem.