This week, be sure to look for the Cradle of Champions, a statue that honors Texas high school football, which was unveiled today in Sundance Square in Fort Worth, Texas, where ESPN is filming their live broadcasts for Super Bowl XLV.

Ewing’s own Craig Freeman, landscape lighting specialist based in Richland Hills, Tex., played an instrumental part in the lighting for the statue. In late November, a Ewing customer, Majestic Outdoor Lighting, was preparing a lighting bid for the statue. The client was looking for creativity in design, customer service, and a good overall proposal and price, said Majestic’s owners, brothers Ryan and Justin Lee.

Ryan Lee said they knew they wanted to use color changing LED lights to illuminate the 7-ton, 16-foot tall statue in the shape of Texas.

"Because we didn’t have a lot of experience with that particular type of technology, we decided to turn to Craig…we knew of his vast experience and thought he would have some ideas on types of fixtures and design ideas that we could use in the project. In addition, Craig has always made us feel like he was putting us first even though he was dealing with many other customers at the same time.”

While they contacted various vendors for bids on LED lights, Craig called A.J. Hetzke, general manager of IlluminFX, to see if he had any ideas for the project. Hetzke immediately thought of Rio, a color changing RGB LED system he had in development.

Released earlier this month, the Rio digital multiplex (DMX) LED system features a variety of colored lighting options, is user-friendly, and uses about one-fifth the amount of energy of traditional lighting systems because of its use of highly efficient LEDs.

Most people like the ability to change the color of their lighting, but don’t want it to be too complicated, Hetzke said.

“Current products on the market today are at two ends of the spectrum,” he said. There are simple color controls that give users limited color and movement options. Other systems are so complicated that users practically need a bachelor’s degree in theatrical lighting to understand them.

“Rio is designed to be easy for the contractor and end user to understand, and simple to install,” he said. The system has virtually unlimited control options for setting up scenes and shows—red, white and blue for the Fourth of July, green and red for Christmas, etc. Color movement can be programmed to be quick and animated or slow, he said.

“I am very excited about the possibilities Rio will provide for landscape contractors and end users,” Hetzke said.

IlluminFX was also able to provide some unique color LED products for the display, including rope light and Slimflex tape light.

When Majestic ultimately won the project on Dec. 14, 2010 IlluminFX started scheduling production immediately.

“Some of the lights we used were custom built to specification with optics designed to throw the light at an angle…we knew everything would have to go perfectly in order to get the lights in time. It is times like that, when you become grateful that you are dealing with a distributor and a manufacturer that you trust and know can deliver. I felt very confident with both IlluminFX and Ewing,” Ryan Lee said.

Because it was Majestic’s first time installing such a dynamic lighting display IlluminFX wired the decoders and pre-programmed the controller with a lighting show that included the NFL playoff team’s colors. Then the materials were delivered to Ewing’s North Richland Hills branch in time for the installation. The installation process was time-consuming, as everything had to be mounted onto solid steel, Ryan Lee said. “Cross-beams underneath the base of the statue created a challenge to get wires to each of the well light fixtures in the base,” he said. They also had to cut each piece of track lighting to precisely fit the outline of the Texas borders of the statue.

In total, the statue is lit with:

• 10 LED well lights, each with its own decoder, up-lighting the statue
• 150 feet of LED rope light outlining the state of Texas
• 10 feet of LED chasing tape light under the laces of the football
• 9 feet of LED tape light outlining the star

With the full collaboration of Majestic Outdoor Lighting, Ewing and IlluminFX, they were able to complete the project in time and to the satisfaction of the client.

The Cradle of Champions is constructed of recycled steel from the recently demolished Texas Stadium and bits of steel from as many as 1,400 Texas high school football stadiums, and will feature the names of Texas high school football players who made it into the NFL.

The statue will be visible from ESPN’s main stage in Fort Worth during the week of the Super Bowl. Eventually the sculpture will be moved to another permanent site. Click here for a video of the statue with the lights in action.

Photos and images courtesy of IlluminFX and Majestic Outdoor Lighting.