Welcome to Wheels Off, a show about the messy reality of the creative life. I'm Rhett Miller.

That's when it got wheels off. We started up and we ain't going to starve.

Oh, I like you. I could not. That's when they got wheels off.

Calvin Watkins is a sports writer.

He is on the staff of the Dallas Morning News, the paper I grew up reading.

He covers the Dallas Cowboys, the team I grew up living and dying by.

His job is to take these players and these games and all of the ephemera surrounding them

and create narratives out of them to make stories.

He is great at it.

Recently, he and I were both on the panel of a literary festival hosted by my alma mater,

St. Mark's High School in Dallas.

And I was so impressed by just what a kind, funny guy, Calvin is that my mind immediately jumped to the idea, of course,

of hitting him up for a wheels-off interview.

It may not seem like an obvious choice because he's a sports writer, right?

Like, is that a creative profession? Well, after talking to

Calvin, I'm more confident than ever that being a sports writer is as creative as any creative

profession. And I'm so glad I got to pick his brain, and I'm so grateful for the time and the wisdom that he shared with

me for this newest episode of Wheels Off. Welcome, Calvin Watkins. Welcome to Wheels Off, Calvin

Watkins. Hello, thank you for having me.

This is so great.

You know, this podcast series is about creativity

and the creative life. And

...