Moncrief describes Super Bowl as 'Super Glue' for a widespread region

Mayor Mike Moncrief has come up with a Super Bowl XLV slogan that has a nice ring to it.

“The Super Bowl is the Super Glue to bring us all together as a region,” said the Fort Worth mayor, adding, “It gives us an opportunity to do what we already do -- which is to partner up.”

The Big Four mayors seem to genuinely like each other.

They met in South Florida on Friday morning to tour Miami International and Fort Lauderdale/Hollywood International airports.

They mugged for photos as a foursome: Moncrief, Leppert, Cluck and Gears.

OK, so they’re not The Lettermen.

That would be the late ‘50s/early ‘60s singing group and a tongue-in-cheek choice of Roger Staubach to perform in concert to kick off SB XLV activities in March.

When Staubach was taken seriously, the Host Committee chairman said, “I’m kidding. I think only one of those guys is still alive. There’s only one ‘Letter’ left.”

Back to Mayor Moncrief. He has learned that every Super Bowl site is a little different and that the challenges between South Florida and North Texas certainly can vary.

“Here in Fort Lauderdale, they not only are dealing with Super Bowl traffic, but they’ve also got the largest cruise ship afloat. It comes here [Saturday] to unload 5,000 people,” Moncrief said from the media center of SB XLIV.

“We don’t have to worry about that,” Moncrief added, “at least until we widen the Trinity.”

We think he was kidding, too.

The Fort Lauderdale Airport is comparable in size to Love Field in Dallas. D/FW, of course, remains one of the busiest airports in the country … to say nothing of its geographic girth.

Mayor Leppert came away from the tour of the South Florida airports believing that North Texas -- one year from now -- will be even better equipped to handle the high demand on air traffic that a Super Bowl brings with it.

“After talking to these people, we’re in a lot better position,” Leppert said. “Fort Lauderdale Airport, geographically, is about one-tenth the size of D/FW Airport. It’s 1,400 acres vs. 17,000 acres.”

Leppert then added with smile, “Gosh, we’ve got areas at D/FW that nobody has ever been to yet.”

-- Ray Buck