David Fleming

Wheels Off with Rhett Miller

Rhett Miller

Arts, Performing Arts, Music

5.0 • 596 Ratings

🗓️ 11 November 2025

⏱️ 38 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Writer David Fleming joins Rhett to dig into craft, career pivots, and the true story behind A Big Mess in Texas—the wild rise-and-fall of the 1952 Dallas Texans (owned by Rhett’s grandfather). Fleming talks about finding meaning in real life, learning to “disappear” as a writer, managing deadlines without losing your mind, and why the work (not the label) is what matters. It’s a candid, funny, and generous conversation about storytelling, identity, and doing your best work—whether you call it sports writing or just great writing. David Fleming is a Peabody-nominated correspondent for Meadowlark Media, longtime ESPN senior writer, author of Who's Your Founding Father?; Breaker Boys; Noah's Rainbow; and, A BIG MESS IN TEXAS - The Miraculous, Disastrous 1952 Dallas Texans and The Craziest Untold Story in NFL History. Out now! Listen to Rhett’s new album “A lifetime of riding by night” https://rhettmiller.com/ Wheels Off is hosted and produced by Rhett Miller. Executive producer Kirsten Cluthe. Music by Old 97’s. Episode artwork by Mark Dowd. Show logo by Tim Skirven. This podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also ask Alexa to play it. Listen to previous episodes of Wheels Off with guests Rosanne Cash, Rob Thomas, Jeff Tweedy, Stewart Copeland, Lucinda Williams, and many more. If you like what you hear, please leave us a rating or review. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	David Fleming is a writer. You might say, sure, he's a sports writer, but he's a writer.
0:11.6	We talk about this during the course of this conversation. You know, it's kind of like saying
0:17.1	that the old 97s are alt-country. I mean, you know, we are all a lot of things.
0:24.4	We contain multitudes, and David Fleming certainly does. He's a great writer. He does happen
0:29.8	to write mostly about sports in which there is no shame. And he proves it over and over that
0:34.7	sports writing can be great writing. and this is what he does.
0:38.6	He is a master of the craft, and he has turned his spotlight most recently on a football team in
0:49.8	1952 that my grandfather owned. Giles Miller, my grandfather, owned an NFL football team. In fact,
0:58.5	it was the last NFL football team to go bankrupt. Yeah, you would never think that bringing
1:06.6	NFL to Dallas would be a way to lose an entire family fortune so much that your grandson
1:15.1	doesn't grow up rich.
1:16.5	Damn it.
1:17.1	I could have been a Jones family or whatever.
1:22.6	One of those billionaire football team owning families.
1:26.0	I could have been that guy.
1:27.5	But no, I am not.
1:28.6	And David Fleming, Dave, does an incredible job of telling the story of why, how, the
1:35.6	craziness that went on behind the scenes.
1:38.4	A big mess in Texas just came out.
1:40.9	David Fleming, great writer.
1:43.2	You know, a senior writer at ESPN, three
1:46.0	decades at Sports Illustrated. He's written books, articles. He's got his requisite 10,000 hours,
	...

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