I like to give the World Wide Leader a hard time around here, but the truth of the matter is they have some exceptionally talented and entertaining writers. We all have our favorite personalities and I was fortunate enough to grab a few moments from mine, David Fleming of ESPN. I actually had the privilege of meeting David several years back while attending Miami University. As a member of the Student Foundation we brought David in as a "Distinguished Alumni" to speak about his profession which I'm certain qualifies as his greatest honor to date complete with my company at dinner (ok, maybe not). David covered the NFL for six years at Sports Illustrated, before joining ESPN where he's now a senior writer for ESPN the Mag and a columnist for Page 2. Most recently, David has released a new book sharing the great story of the Pottsville Maroons: "Breaker Boys: The NFL's Greatest Team and the Stolen 1925 Championship." He was generous enough to share more details about his book and some thoughts on the current NFL season.

CF: First off, tell us a little more about your new book "Breaker Boys: The NFL's Greatest Team and the Stolen 1925 Championship." I'm looking forward to reading this fascinating story. How did the idea to write a book on this topic begin?

David Fleming: I had heard about this team when I worked for Sports Illustrated. And then, while covering the 2003 NFL owners meeting I saw a one-line agenda item that said something like, 'The city of Pottsville (Pa.) will petition the NFL to have the 1925 NFL title returned to its rightful owners, The Pottsville Maroons.' I did a little bit of research on the team, the players, the town and the controversy surrounding the Maroons huge upset of the Notre Dame Four Horsemen (in an exhibition game after the NFL season) and how that cost them the NFL title and the hair on the back of my neck stood up. As a writer you know when you've stumbled onto a great story; something so full of rich characters, a perfect story arc and an 82-year-old controversy between a little town and the Goliath NFL? You can't make 'em up any better than that. So I was almost afraid to see if anyone had already written a book on this team. But to my great shock, they hadn't. (Everyone always says this would make a great movie too. And, in fact, that project is well underway with Gavin O'Connor, the guy who directed Miracle, attached to direct the movie based on Breaker Boys.) Every day during the last four years I've learned something more fascinating about this pioneering team, these wild and colorful, but honorable men, the revolutionary times of the 1920s, the pride the coal region takes in its often overlooked football legacy, and just what a tragedy it is that even though pillars of the pro game, like George Halas, Dan Rooney, Red Grange, George Preston Marshall, Jeff Lurie and Paul Tagliabue have supported the cause, the NFL has continued to rob this team and this town of the credit they deserve for making pro football what it is today.

Can you share a brief anecdote about a fascinating learning while writing the book?

The star of the team and one of the main characters of the book is running back Tony Latone. When his father died, Tony was forced into the coal mines at the age of 11 to help support his family. (He started out as a Breaker Boy in the coal mines, that's where the name of the book comes from.) He emerged from the mines, traded in his pick for a pigskin, and went on to become the leading rusher of the NFL during the 1920s. In fact, in 30 fewer games he ran for more yards and scored more touchdowns than Red Grange. The Galloping Ghost himself once said that Latone was "one hell broth of a rugged coal miner and, for my money, the most football player I have ever seen." So to get in the proper mindset before writing the sections on Latone, I went down into a coal mine in Eastern Pennsylvania. I'm glad I did, because before then I didn't have the proper reverence for the people, like Latone, who have given their lives to provide the fuel this country was built on.
 
Really, though, the team is full of great characters. The coach was a renowned ornithologist. The tailback was a dentist. The fullback was a city councilman. Their best lineman used a wool baseball cap instead of a helmet. The guys would bet a Yuengling (brewed in Pottsville) before each kickoff on who would make the tackle. Their punter met his wife when one of his errant kicks flew into the stands and knocked her out. The team just embodied the 'sky's the limit' ethos of the Roaring Twenties. The press called the Maroons 'The Perfect Football Machine'. And they were. They crushed Green Bay, Buffalo, Canton and beat the team that would become the Eagles, 49-0. In what was considered the championship game they obliterated the Chicago Cardinals at Comiskey Park. The league then suspended the Maroons for playing Notre Dame in an exhibition game. And when the NFL tried to give the 1925 NFL title to the Cards their owner wouldn't accept what he called a 'bogus' title.
Could the Pottsville Maroons beat this year's St. Louis Rams? 

You have to understand, in the brutal frontier days of the NFL the game oozed gore. It was nothing for 20 players to die in one season. The most important requirement of an NFL player in 1925 was that he be able to endure incredible amounts of pain. The players used to stuff old newspapers and magazine up under their uniforms for extra padding and when that didn't work trainers often recommended the same thing for injuries: iodine and four fingers of whiskey. So, yeah, sorry, but that's my long way of saying if it's possible to compare them side-by-side the Maroons would beat the Rams by 50. Back then college football was king and no one even knew if the NFL would survive the season. The Notre Dame Four Horsemen were considered the greatest football team in the history of the sport. And the Maroons beat them. It put the NFL on the map. (The league, in its infinite wisdom, thanked Pottsville by kicking them out of the NFL. So, I guess some things never change.) In 1925 the Pottsville Maroons beating Notre Dame would be like in 2007 if Appalachian State had knocked off the New England Patriots instead of Michigan.
 
I'd love for the Maroons to play the Arizona Cardinals since the owner, Bill Bidwill and his family, have been using their influence behind the scenes for 50 years to try and keep the 'bogus' title for themselves. This has resulted in a Cardinals Curse placed on the team by Pottsville and the results are scary: one playoff win in the last 59 years.

What's an average Sunday like in the life of David Fleming?

Well, I attend games but I don't cover them, per se. If I'm working on a profile of a player I go to games to watch that player, to pick up some game-action details and anecdotes for my story and to act as a fly on the wall afterward, looking for those brief glimpses and tiny moments where, unguarded, people tend to reveal themselves. Perfect example: earlier this year I was working on a Jon Kitna piece for The Magazine; it was a story about him but also a look at the role faith plays in football. Any way, during the game Kitna gets knocked out after a slight blow to the head. But he comes back in during the fourth quarter and leads the Lions to a win. Later, you'll remember, he said God used a miracle to heal him. Shadowing him after the game I got to see things like his son recalling how he stood up in the stands and yelled, 'that's my dad!'; I got to see Matt Millen congratulating Kitna's father in the players parking lot and saying the plan was for him to replace his son if he got injured again; and back at Kitna's house we watched highlights of the day, checked out fantasy football stats, ate some Cornflakes and spent a lot of time debating the issues of his evangelical faith and how it related to the Lions turnaround.

I know I asked you this a long time ago at Miami, but what was your first job out of college?

I was a student intern at the weekly Mason (Ohio) Pulse-Journal. I don't recall exactly how much money I was making but I do remember once being envious of the pizza delivery guy when he told me what kind of coin he was pulling in. This is much more a statement on weekly newspapers than my abilities, but I went from student intern to editor in chief in, like, eight months. Younger writers who email me for advice hate this answer but I spent two years at the Pulse-Journal and while I would never want to do it again, at the time it was the absolute best thing for me as a writer and journalist. I wrote a ton every single day--I wrote sports, columns, editorials, news, features, obits, you name it, I cranked it out. Heck, I even shot photos. I loved it. I really did. At the end I got a massive raise (to, like, 22 grand a year) and what did I do? Like a genius, I said no thanks and went to work for 20 bucks a night answering phones for the sports department at The Cincinnati Post.
 
Aright let's get this Miami stuff out of the way -- Impressed with Big Ben thus far?

Two summers ago I spent a week with Ben and his family traveling across Switzerland for a piece in ESPN The Magazine. It was an amazing trip. The kind of assignment where I'm at the top of the Swiss Alps hitting golf balls down into a glacier with Ben and thinking, 'They pay me to do this?' At the final dinner at some palace we were like five hours and eight courses into it and Ben's mom, I think, said something like, Oh please no more chocolate and cheese. Any way, I write this sort of travelogue piece that includes our stop in Bern where I got locked in this town's ancient, sacred clock tower (news of the event ran on the Swiss version of CNN at the top of the hour, every hour, for, like, a week. Everywhere I went I heard people snickering, 'gleebin schnorka, de-frotch-a umph dobbin, David Fleming ESPN...heeheehee behind my back.) Then I take off for a vacation with my wife. On our trip, Ben gets into his motorcycle accident in Pittsburgh so I have, like, half a day to recraft this funny, goofy travel piece into a serious essay-type piece. This is, again, a very very long way for me to say that after the kind of year he had last season, and knowing that he's a fellow Miami RedHawk and a pretty good dude, yes, I am impressed with Ben and it's hard not to be happy for him after what he went through last year.

In a word - your thought/response to Adrian Peterson thus far?

How about two: High. School. He's so good and so young, I'm convinced that Adrian Peterson might have been able to do the impossible and skip college and go straight to the NFL.

Question of the week: Are the Patriots going undefeated?

Nope. They're bound to have an off week soon, maybe even against Ben's Steelers. I spent a lot of time with Tony Dungy the year the Colts almost went undefeated and while we all like to speculate, the truth is the players and coaches don't really care all that much about 16-0 and they certainly won't risk wearing out their starters or getting them injured before the playoffs just to get 16 wins. I could see a Ditka or a Wyche going for it but, sadly, those kinds of coaches aren't around anymore. Instead we get sourpusses like Belichick. Fast forward to Week 17. The Pats will have the No. 1 seed wrapped up with no incentive to play hard and they'll be playing their backups in New York against the Giants who will be fighting for their post-season seed. As much as I hate that Miami ritual, 16-0 is not gonna happen. Although the truth is, if they keep going the way they are and win the Super Bowl, the Patriots won't need 16-0 to be considered the best team ever.

For some reason I'm still having a difficult time buying that the Lions are really playoff caliber. I mean, maybe it's so ingrained that they'll blow it from growing up in Michigan, but I'm just not buying yet. Are you? Why should I believe?

Well, for starters, they play in the NFC. The play in that conference is so far behind the AFC that it's all up for grabs. Trust me, I've been in that Lions locker room in the past when you can literally feel the way the team is infected with a losing attitude. (Late last year the Lions actually had guys on the sidelines mocking teammates for trying hard out on the field.) But that dark cloud seems to be breaking up a bit in Motown.

Speaking of that, does this take Matt Millen off the hook?

Heck no. No matter what the Lions do he's still put together what has to be the worst string of decisions by a GM in, perhaps, the history of the game. If they win it's in spite of him. Remember the Seinfeld when George decides that if all his instincts are wrong than he should just do the opposite in order to be successful--and the next thing he knows he's got a hot girlfriend and a job with the Yankees? That's what Millen should do. And he'll have time to do it as well, because, the way the Fords are, a few more wins and he'll probably get a lifetime contract...if he doesn't have one already.

Living in North Carolina, have you become a Panthers fan? Do you have a favorite team? Covering the NFL as a whole for ESPN, does it make it difficult to 'have a team'?

Not a big Panthers fan. Although, to be fair, no one really is down here. The stadium empties--win, lose or draw--about midway through the third quarter of every game. See, no one who lives in Charlotte is actually from Charlotte. (I don't live there, either, I live in a little college town nearby.) So people are still fans of their true hometown teams like the Steelers, 49ers, Bears and Bills. Because of my job I don't really have a favorite team. It's kinda like hotdogs in a way. Once you've been on the inside and seen how they're made you lose your appetite for them. My dad grew up in Cleveland and is a sick Browns fan and some of that has rubbed off on me. But for the most part, hockey is my sport (I still play on a rec league where once in a while I can still get a Fleming hattrick: a goal, an assist and a barf into the garbage can behind the bench) and having grown up in Detroit and spent many nights as a teenager running through the old abandoned Olympia, the Red Wings are 'my' team.

Lastly, What's up with my Bears -- any hope left to catch the Packers or should they just tank the season to get a top QB? I'm convincing myself of the latter more and more each day.

Stick with that plan my friend. Until then, I think the Bears should just punt on first down and try to win games with defensive turnovers and kick returns.

Thanks David! Go Redhawks!