LOCAL LEADERSHIP

North Texas Mayors come together as Super Bowl XLV is now a year away

By Mickey Spagnola

February 5, 2010

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — A little Super Bowl symmetry landed under the twin arches and the mock Cowboys Stadium video board Friday here at the Super Bowl XLIV Media Center.

First Clark Hunt, Kansas City Chiefs Chairman of the Board.

Then the four mayors on the Executive Committee of the North Texas Super Bowl XLV Host Committee: Tom Leppert of Dallas, Mike Moncrief of Fort Worth, Dr. Robert Cluck of Arlington and Herbert Gears of Irving.

Hunt represents the origin of the Super Bowl, the actual name his father, the late Lamar Hunt, thought of, which was then passed on to and adopted by the NFL.

The four mayors who made their appearance here at the North Texas Super Bowl XLV Host Committee plaza in the Media Center, represent the future, now charged with helping to shepherd the first Super Bowl in North Texas history.

And all know that Saturday marks Super Bowl XLV, once merely a bid for this region, being exactly one year away from its Feb. 6, 2011, date at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas.

“I’ve got that little clock on my desk and I look at it every day,” Moncrief said of the Host Committee’s countdown clock, breaking down the time in days, hours, minutes and even seconds. “I looked at the countdown clock here, and they’ve got two days left, so I think the pucker starts about right now.

“I realize that when the last whistle blows and the lights go out here in Florida, those lights and those spotlights are going to shift to North Texas.”

Those Super Bowl spotlights actually shifted to the North Texas area 40-some years ago when the NFL was trying to come up with something catchier than calling their championship game being played between the then rival NFL and AFL the World Championship Game, as were the first two encounters named following the 1966 and 1967 seasons. Because if truth is known, the actual name ‘Super Bowl’ was not used until Super Bowl III.

And for that, we’ll let Clark Hunt take us back to Dallas, where his father, not only the owner of the Kansas City Chiefs but a founding father of the American Football League and the team originally called the Dallas Texans. Clark and his brother and sister had a lot to do with how all this turned out.

“It’s really me and my siblings, although as time has gone on we’ve debated which one of us is responsible for it,” Clark Hunt said here on Friday. “As the story goes, my mom (Norma) went to the store and bought three Super Balls, which was the toy de jour at that time for myself and my older brother and older sister. And my dad was sitting around one day watching us bounce the balls over the house, and somehow it popped in his head Super Bowl.

“So then at a league meeting when they were talking about a championship game, and I think at that point it was the NFL-AFL Championship Game, which was just very wordy, and he just blurted out, the last game, the final game, ‘The Super Bowl.’ And everybody looked at him for a minute and then went back to talking about what they were talking about but somehow the name stuck and everybody started using it.

“Pete Rozell, the commissioner at the time didn’t like it at all, but eventually he came around and decided it was the right name for the game.”

And that’s what this game which has turned into a worldwide event has been called ever since.

That means Super Bowl XLV is right around the corner, and the two years of preparations for the game to be played in the Dallas Cowboys’ $1.2 billion stadium are kicking into an even higher gear now being only a year out. That is why the four regional mayors were here this weekend, scoping things out, or as Dr. Cluck says, “This will be (South Florida’s) 10th time (to play host to a Super Bowl). This will be our first time, so we’re trying to learn from the experts. You have to learn how to do it.”

And that learning which has been taking place this entire week — transportation, security, stadium operations, media center operations, team hotels, team practice facilities, Host Committee parties, signage, frequency controls, airport traffic — did not exclude Leppert, Moncrief, Cluck or Gears.

“We know everything is bigger in Texas and that’s why we are expecting a bigger result,” Gears said. “We are expecting bigger economic numbers and bigger participation. That’s the way it’s going to be. The world is finally going to understand what the North Texas community can provide.”

Also, here is another interesting consideration, brought up by Phillip Jones, the CEO of the Dallas Convention and Visitors Bureau. He’s been through a couple of Super Bowls in New Orleans when he was then the head of the Louisiana Tourism Department, so he is somewhat of an expert compared to most of his Super Bowl XLV companions.

“We would always notice a spike the next year following the Super Bowl,” said Jones, whose Dallas CVB became the Host Committee’s first Founding Sponsor, donating $1 million to the fundraising effort.

Here’s what he means: The Super Bowl attracts worldwide television attention, nearly a week-long free advertisement for the host city. And afterward, after hearing so much about the different places, events, history and locations in that city, people decide they would like to go there to visit.

Also, visitors who might have been to the Super Bowl for only a weekend, or the tons of media members spending their entire time working, decide to come back to enjoy all the activity they had no chance to do so the first time.

That is why it’s become so important for the North Texas region to do this right the first time.

“Our goal is not just Super Bowl XLV next year,” Moncrief said. “Our goal is to host Super Bowl L, and we have every intention. We already are focused on that effort. We are already focused on saying if we can do this and do it right, then there is nothing that we can’t do together.

“With our resources and our firepower in North Texas, we can accomplish about anything we set our minds to.”

The area, especially the city of Dallas, will get somewhat of a dry run next week when the NBA All-Star game comes to Cowboys Stadium. The All-Star weekend festivities will mostly be centered in Dallas, where the various events leading up to next Sunday’s game will take place at American Airlines Center.

That also means the majority of the media will be staying in Dallas.

“I think it does help,” Leppert said of having so many of the NBA All-Star festivities and visitors for the weekend in Dallas. “I think having that many people coming into town, and the world, at least the nation, focusing on North Texas, and a chance to set up some of the dry runs for the logistical issues, the security, the transportation, is helpful.”

So will having the game at Cowboys Stadium, where some 80,000 are expected to attend.

But this will be “only” a dry run, as Leppert said, pointing out the NBA All-Star weekend does not take on the scope of a Super Bowl.

While not all the locations for Super Bowl XLV events have been announced, Dallas knows it will be playing host to these: The NFL Experience at the Dallas Convention Center; the NFL Media Center at the Sheraton Downtown Hotel; and the NFC Fan Party at Fair Park.

So there is no time to dilly-dally for these mayors.

“I remember that day when they came in announcing the Super Bowl was going to be in Arlington,” Dr. Cluck said of that 2007 spring day in Nashville, Tenn., “and I said, ‘Man we have a lot of time to figure this out.’ Well, it’s here, and it seems like it should be another three years.

“When we fly back, the three mayors and I, it’s ours.”

Sure enough is. So get ready.