COACH LANDRY HONORED

The Host Committee along with the Landry Family have officially announced the temporary naming addition of Interstate-30 to “Tom Landry Super Bowl Highway”

By Steve Pate

Thursday, September 9, 2010 - 1:20am

The idea, from the very start, was to find a way to honor the late, great Tom Landry during North Texas’ first-ever Super Bowl celebration.

After all, for the first three decades of Dallas Cowboys history, Landry was the local name most synonymous with Super Bowls.

The idea became reality Tuesday afternoon at the storied Cotton Bowl Stadium in Fair Park when the North Texas Super Bowl XLV Host Committee, with the blessings of the Landry Family on hand, announced the temporary naming addition of Interstate 30 between Dallas and Fort Worth as the “Tom Landry Super Bowl Highway.”

That 30-mile portion of I-30 running between Dallas and Fort Worth, originally known as the Dallas-Fort Worth Turnpike, had been renamed Tom Landry Highway in October 2001. The moniker “Tom Landry Highway” will remain, but nine highway signs on that 30-mile strip will also refer to it as “Tom Landry Super Bowl Highway” from now through game day on Feb. 6, 2011.

Alicia Landry, the coach’s wife, graciously thanked those present, which included mayors of several local cities and several players who had starred on Landry’s teams. Landry began his Cowboys’ coaching career in 1960 with the team’s inaugural season in that very Cotton Bowl Stadium.

Roger Staubach, the Host Committee Chair and a Pro Football Hall of Fame quarterback during the Landry era, called his coach “the greatest sports icon to ever come through this Metroplex.”

Frank Supovitz, the NFL’s Senior Vice President, Events, came up with the idea of adding “Super Bowl” to the highway. He knew that a four-county area had won the North Texas bid. While studying a local map, Supovitz pictured Fort Worth as one end zone, Dallas as the other end zone, and Cowboys Stadium as the 50-yard line. And so, what better place to honor Landry than on that main corridor?

Of course, transportation is always a major challenge wherever Super Bowls are played. Nothing is easy, especially for a venue as large as Cowboys Stadium.

Michael Morris, Director of Transportation for the North Central Texas Council of Governments, is Super Bowl XLV’s traffic czar and Chair of the Host Committee’s Transportation Action Team. He said great strides have been made with traffic flow in and around Cowboys Stadium since country singer George Strait performed the first main event there just over a year ago.

“Between the Giants/Cowboys’ Monday Night Football Game and the NBA All-Star Game, there’s a really good staff in place,” Morris said.

“And now, as that plan gets fine-tuned with all the details related to the Super Bowl, we remain very confident that we’ll have an aggressive bus system; we’ll have a rail system; and, we’ll have a sophisticated parking reservation system with plans to get to and from (the stadium). We feel very good about where we are right now and the process we have in place to complete it.”

In other words, you can ride Tom Landry by rail, by bus or by auto. Tom’s Highway will get you to the game.