Mavs Victory Parade To Take Place Thursday
DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) - Details are still coming out, but CBS 11 News has learned that Thursday morning will be the time for North Texans to celebrate the Dallas Mavericks NBA championship.
Sources within the City of Dallas said that the Mavericks victory parade will kick off at 10:00 a.m. Thursday morning at Dallas City Hall, and finish at the American Airlines Center. There is also a planned celebration inside of the American Airlines Center in the works, but it is unknown if that will be a ticketed event.
This is a plan more than five years in the making, as it generally follows the prematurely released 2006 route. The city reportedly planned the parade on Friday, but decided to keep the details under wraps to avoid a similar situation to 2006, and to avoid giving the Miami Heat any extra motivation, which they obviously lacked.
The parade will consist of the Mayor and other city officials, team owner Mark Cuban, team officials, Mavs dancers, coaches, players and their families along with organizational staff.
Dallas Mayor Dwaine Caraway told CBS 11 News -- before details were known -- that the city was simply excited to be here again. "We're very excited and we anticipate a full house wherever this parade will take place," he said.
It has been more than 10 years since Dallas' last professional sports victory parade, which was a trek around the city for the triumphant Dallas Stars in 1999. But the requirements haven't changed: insurance, overtime for police and parade cleanup are only a few of the things taken into consideration in the planning stage of the parade, and all of those things come with a hefty bill.
Mavericks owner Mark Cuban has offered to pick up the tab, which eases things considerably, says Downtown Dallas Inc. president and CEO John Crawford. "If he wasn't willing to do that, there would be a lot of us running around trying to gather funds from a multitude of sources other than the city," said Crawford, whose organization will help with the parade.
Downtown Dallas Inc.'s 45 security patrol officers already regularly interface with police, and will assist where needed. These patrol officers are armed with nothing more than radios, but they provide instant eyes and ears for police. Their initial jobs are to remove panhandlers or people illegally consuming alcohol. "In the event there is a problem, which we don't anticipate, then we've got enough people on hand to control that aspect," said Crawford.
Downtown security patrolman Brandon Helms said that, even though they are not police, those they confront know that the police support them. So, people cooperate, "especially during parade time."
The same source said that Dallas police officers are being told that there will be hundreds of officers called in to work the parade and event, and that all officers have been prevented from taking leave on Tuesday through Thursday, to make sure that the event is well-staffed.
The full announcement of parade details are expected Tuesday morning. Check back here for more updates.
Update 11:20 a.m.
There will be a press conference today at 12:30 p.m. at Dallas City Hall to talk about preparations for the parade. The City of Dallas will announce the parade time and route at this time.
