DiscoverUp + Adam with Adam MontielOne-Legged Trainers, Drunk QBs, and Civil Rights: The Team the NFL Tried to Erase
One-Legged Trainers, Drunk QBs, and Civil Rights: The Team the NFL Tried to Erase

One-Legged Trainers, Drunk QBs, and Civil Rights: The Team the NFL Tried to Erase

Update: 2025-10-15
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What happens when a football team becomes a time capsule for a country on the edge of change? In this episode, Adam sits down with award-winning journalist and author David Fleming to unpack A Big Mess in Texas, the jaw-dropping, hilarious, and deeply human true story of the 1952 Dallas Texans.


You don’t have to know a first down from a fumble to love this story. Whether you're a sports fan or not, this one grabs you with its chaos, characters, and cultural crossroads.


From drunken halftime quarterbacks and elephant-dung-covered fields to civil rights standoffs and Klan bombings, this isn’t just the most dysfunctional season in NFL history, it’s a forgotten American epic. David takes us behind the scenes of his years-long research journey, the characters too wild for fiction, and why this story had to be told now.


This episode is for the football fan, the history buff, the curious soul, and anyone who knows that sometimes the biggest messes leave the deepest marks.


Guest: David Fleming

• Book: A Big Mess in Texas: The Incredible True Story of the Dallas Texans

• Learn more: https://www.abigmessintexas.com

• Order the book: https://www.amazon.com/Big-Mess-Texas-Incredible-Dysfunctional/dp/1250374305

• Follow David: https://twitter.com/FlemFile

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One-Legged Trainers, Drunk QBs, and Civil Rights: The Team the NFL Tried to Erase

One-Legged Trainers, Drunk QBs, and Civil Rights: The Team the NFL Tried to Erase

Adam Montiel