Before the Mavs' Parade, Fans Sweated in the Streets While Local Officials Fawned

By Patrick Michels Thu., Jun. 16 2011 at 3:25 PM

Photos by Patrick Michels

Like Jim says, don't let yourself get carried away. It's just sports.

After hanging out along the parade route for a while this morning, Nick and I ducked into the convention center for what we'd been told would be a half-hour interview session with the Mavs before they floated their way to the AAC.

Little did we know we'd be cooling our heels right alongside the rest of the parade riders -- namely, Your Dallas City Council, Jamie Foxx and a host of other local officials.

So even when the players' buses arrived and spilled some very happy, very tall guys and their families onto the convention hall floor, the best entertainment was still probably watching County Judge Clay Jenkins running around trying to snap Dirk's photo. ("You've made the people of Dallas County proud," he told Nowitzki once he'd gotten up close.) Angela Hunt brought along a gold basketball and managed to get autographs from at least Nowitzki, Jason Kidd and Foxx.

Jump for a shot of Jenkins in his official championship gear (looking sporty in a red, white and blue bandana too) and other scenes from early this morning -- or just check out the whole slideshow here.

There's got to be a solid starting five in this group.

Foxx and Caraway discuss... well, probably basketball.

"Woo," says County Judge Clay Jenkins.

Dirk chats with the media.

Caraway waves along the parade route.

Nowitzki and Kidd's float cruises by a city landmark.

Check out our slideshow for more photos.

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Barney Gumble

Do we know if Caraway gave keys to anybody on the Mavs organization or is that honor reserved for convicted felons?

Bettyculbreath

Thanks Mayor Caraway for Leading this City with energy and fun for every day people.Your can do spirit has been a much needed boost for Dallas.Any other time it would have been two weeks before the plan was complete.Thanks Chief Brown for your Get It Done attitude and keeping it safe,your Officers were pleasant and friendly. Thanks Mark Cuban for picking up tab.Thanks Dallas Mavericks Team for being a Winner.

ScottsMerkin

Sorry betty, but methinks Cuban offering to pay for the whole thing helped expedite this parade. Those 2 weeks you speak of would have been spent deciding which libarary or pool to close and who to layoff to pay for the parade.

Steve

And one fuckin' glomming douche. Hey, Jamie Foxx: FUCK OFF.

Robert Wilonsky

Figured I might as well pop in here and give you the city's official Harper's list of parade stats. Hit it, Paul:

Estimated attendance of 200,000

No major incidents other than one fight that resulted in three arrests

540 Police Officers utilized (uniform, plain clothes, mounted etc)

132 Dallas Fire-Rescue personnel utilized

145 minor medical treatments mostly for heat related issues

9 transports for heat exhaustion (no casualties)

6 children separated from their parents but quickly reunited by officers

Traffic heavy downtown but managed

Houston Street viaduct in-bound was temporarily closed due to high traffic

No negative impact on city-wide police or fire response times

Garbage clean-up is going exceptionally well.

Support was provided by DART police, Dallas County Sheriff’s Office and City of McKinney

Parade route reopened at 12:35pm

Well done, Dallas. Well done.

P1Steven

Is this the best major event the City of Dallas has ever had? Seriously, well behaved fans. This is awesome & one of the best days ever for the area.

Stacy

Hey Robert....The Dart train system was again completely overwhelmed...took almost 4 hrs to get home.... apparently they were worried about overwhelming the stations and provided buses from the stations to downtown but didn't use they heads and did not provided buses back to the stations resulting in PURE CHAOS.....2 hrs waiting for a train to squeeze in and 1 hr being stuck on the train, when 1 or more trains broke down in the tunnel system according to a Dart police officer nearby Dart was pushing it off the tracks...any story on this.

Robert Wilonsky

Funny you should ask: Our photog at Victory Park hasn't sent his pics in because his expected quick trip home via DART turned into a long, national nightmare involving his being stuck on a train for an hour for reasons I've heard but have yet to confirm. We await his return any ... moment?

Milkman Dan

Nice. It attempted to HTML the quiver.

Milkman Dan

<lip quivering..=""> but.. but.. but... a D Mag intern said she smelled marujanna!</lip>

Stacy

I left immediately after the parade and just got home 40 mins ago...the parade ended at 11:00............I've been to many events as well in large cities w/ public transpo....and trust me...this was a disaster... The train system was not only overwhelmed but COMPLETELY BROKEN DOWN......people were stuck on ALL TRAINS on EVERY single track packed like sardines for more than an hr!!!!!!!.......................That is not normal at all....... This was a complete breakdown of dart.....

SHM

Not attempting to be a DART apologist - but having attended major events in 3 cities with large rail systems (including 2 Olympics), I have always experienced overwhelmed transit systems with multiple hour waits and overpacked trains (especially immediately preceeding and following the event). The answer is to be smart and consider that an additional hundred thousand people added to the system is going to be a hassle and find something else to do for a couple of hours.