There are individuals in the folklore of Dallas-Fort Worth sports that never, ever get mentioned nor do they get any press outside of a quote here or there throughout the year.There's Lamar Hunt and Clint Murchison Jr. Norm Green. Don Carter. And Tom Vandergriff.
The latter passed away yesterday. He was 84.
It's pretty hard to imagine what the Dallas-Fort Worth sports complex would look like without Vandergriff probably more than any one person, like Jerry Jones.
Vandergriff was mayor of the city of Arlington, winning his first term in 1951. In 1953, he -- the son of an Chevy auto dealership enterprise -- was instrumental in opening the GM plant in Arlington. He also helped build I-30, The University of Texas at Arlington (and it's brilliant football program), Tarrant County College, Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport.
In 1961, Vandergriff got Six Flags to build an amusement park.
Then, his coup de grace, Vandergriff got the Washington Senators to relocate to Arlington. They'd be called the Texas Rangers.
Look at all that. Where are we without Vandergriff. Maybe we get a baseball franchise sooner or later. No telling if they'd be in Arlington or not. Maybe they're in Dallas.
Anyway, Vandergriff was a huge asset for Tarrant County. The development of I-30, Six Flags and the Rangers were a gigantic reason why Jerry Jones built the Death Star in Arlington.
There are names that will be logged in the scrapbook of Dallas-Fort Worth sports like Green, Norm Sonju, Don Carter, Hunt, Murchison Jr., Jerry Jones, Mark Cuban and Tom Hicks. However, none had more impact than Vandergriff. He gave up more than a half century of his life in not only bringing in a cruddy baseball team that no one cared about until they reached the World Series.
He lead. He built roads and championed education. He brought in jobs and sacrificed a lot for a city not named Dallas or Fort Worth.
