“There is no passion to be found playing small—in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.” Nelson Mandela
In the National Football League, “Mr. Irrelevant” is the title given to the final player taken in each year’s draft. In the 1994 NFL Draft, quarterback prospect Kurt Warner would have been happy to be that year’s “Mr. Irrelevant”—but by the time the final pick had been announced, 222 players had been drafted, and Kurt Warner was not one of them.
To the football world, he was just part of a large supply of quarterbacks who were eager to play in the NFL, but were considered long shots to even land a spot as a backup on an NFL roster. Nobody would have suspected at the time that Kurt was in the middle of a long battle that would eventually take him to the top of the football world, five years after going undrafted and virtually unnoticed in 1994.
Despite demonstrating success at both the high school and college football levels, Kurt Warner was never considered a top football prospect throughout his amateur career.
After putting together a solid senior season of high school football in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and earning MVP honors in that year’s Iowa Shrine Bowl all-star game, not one top college football programs came knocking at Kurt’s door. Though he showed football aptitude, scouts were unimpressed by his size, speed, and high school statistics, and only one school actively recruited Kurt: a small local Division I-AA college called Northern Iowa.
As a consolation, Kurt felt that Northern Iowa would offer him more playing time than the prestigious schools he had his sights set on. However, it turned out that the playing time did not come as quickly as he anticipated. In fact, in he spent his first year as a redshirt (practice squad) player (giving him an extra year of eligibility for college football), and his next three years as a backup, until finally being put in the starting role in his fifth and final season in 1993. And he began that season at a disastrous pace, tossing three interceptions in game one, separating his throwing arm shoulder in game two, and struggling with his shoulder in a dismal game three performance.
A determined Kurt, however, remained unfazed through those setbacks. He got on a roll and never looked back, finishing the season with 2747 passing yards Gateway Conference Player of the Year honors, leaving him resolved to take the next step and play in the NFL.
Of course, as a division I-AA player with only one year of starting experience, Kurt was by no means an early round prospect. But his strong 1993 season coupled with a lack of depth at quarterback in the upcoming draft made it conceivable that he could be taken as a late round pick. And when four NFL teams invited Kurt to pre draft workout sessions, it seemed as if he might be one of the names called on draft day.
Kurt fervently watched the draft on TV and lingered by his phone, hoping that one of 29 NFL teams would take a stake in him. None did.
However, he did receive post-draft interest from several teams, and ultimately signed with the Green Bay Packers as an undrafted free agent rookie for a $5,000 signing bonus.
Kurt enthusiastically joined the Packer’s training camp keyed up over his NFL prospects. But coming from Division I-AA football with little time to learn the NFL system, and receiving very few opportunities to exhibit his skills as an undrafted free agent in an NFL training camp, Kurt was cut from the Packers before the regular season even began.
To most observers, it appeared as if Kurt Warner’s NFL dreams had vanished. But Kurt’s short-lived NFL experience left him convinced that he could play quarterback in the league. He volunteered as an assistant football coach for Northern Iowa, and continued working out and sharpening his football skills at the Northern Iowa facilities.
At the time, Kurt grew increasingly closer to his girlfriend Brenda, whom he first met in his final year at Northern Iowa College. Although Brenda was notably older than Kurt and a divorced single mother of two young children when they met, their relationship flourished, and Kurt even took over much of the father role of Brenda’s children.
Shortly after being cut from the Packers, Kurt was low on funds and moved in with Brenda and her parents. He also worked a night job stocking shelves, sweeping floors, and bagging and transporting groceries at a local 24-hour supermarket—a job that made his $5,000 NFL signing bonus seem like a fortune, and made him uncomfortable as he went from local football hero to local grocery boy in a matter of months.
An NFL return seemed like a long shot, but Kurt refused to quit. With little time for sleep, he went through a rigorous regimen of watching Brenda’s children in the daytime while Brenda worked, then coaching and training at Northern Iowa, and then working nights at the supermarket.
In March of 1995, the local and newly formed Iowa Barnstormers of the Arena Football League (AFL) expressed interest in signing Kurt to play quarterback. Though the AFL—a minor professional football league with a smaller 50 yard long field and slightly different rules from conventional football—was not exactly the NFL, and in fact, in terms of fan interest and player salaries, was worlds away from it, Kurt joined the Barnstormers, glad to receive a $1,000 per game salary and have an opportunity to enhance his skills and possibly attract the attention of NFL teams.
Kurt started for the Barnstormers, and in a first season that began anemically as he learned the nuances of the faster paced AFL game, he quickly learned, adapted, and improved.
Then in April 1996, while Kurt was preparing for his sophomore year in the AFL, he and Brenda received some devastating news: Brenda’s parents, who were living in Arkansas, were both killed by a tornado killed them both. The sudden death of Larry and Jenny Carney was difficult for Brenda and Kurt to cope with, and caused the couple to become much more spiritual and religious.
Following that trying ordeal, Kurt began his 1996 season with the Barnstormers, which proved to be a huge success: he earned All League honors and led his team to a 12-2 regular season record, and just one yard from winning the Arena Bowl Championship in a nail-biting 42-38 loss.
Kurt was given a new contract of over $60,000 a year, and the next season he and the Barnstormers repeated a similar season, once again reaching the Arena Bowl but falling short, this time 55-33.
Despite not winning a championship, Kurt had cemented his status as one of the AFL’s elite players. In September of 1997, while Kurt and longtime girlfriend Brenda prepared to get married, the Chicago Bears of the NFL invited Kurt to work out for the team’s scouts. However, Kurt had to postpone the workout twice in order to make time for his wedding and honeymoon. And while honeymooning in Jamaica, Kurt suffered a mysterious insect bite which temporarily irritated his shoulder so much that it rendered him unable to throw a football. He tried but failed to reschedule his session with the Bears, and it seemed as if Kurt had encountered a major detour on mission to reach the NFL.
Luckily, another NFL team, the St. Louis Rams, offered Kurt a similar opportunity later that year, and invited him to participate in a workout in front of team scouts. This time Kurt showed up, and his performance impressed the scouts enough to regard him as a future Rams prospect.
But the Rams first allocated him to the Amsterdam Admirals of the NFL Europe—an NFL affiliated spring league that more or less acts as a developmental league that allows promising prospects to gain additional experience. Kurt packed his bags and went off to Amsterdam, leaving his family behind in Des Moines.
Like numerous occasions throughout his career, Kurt was again forced to prove himself. He did.
In his first and only season in the NFL Europe, Kurt led the league in yards, completions, and touchdowns. His strong performance prompted the Rams to invite him to training camp, finally putting him back in the position to compete for a spot on an NFL roster, like he did for the Packers four years ago.
This time, Kurt made it made it as a third string quarterback, and was finally in the NFL. But the best was yet to come.
In the 1998 NFL season, Kurt primarily led the scout team offense during practice. (A scout offense practices against and helps prepare the starting defense for their games.) As a third string quarterback, his only game experience amounted to a four for eleven 39-yard performance during “garbage time” against the 49ers.
Then during the 1999 preseason, new Rams offensive coordinator Mike Martz began to take an interest Kurt. Though this usually amounted to Martz yelling at and criticizing the 28-year-old third-string quarterback, Martz actually saw promise in Kurt, and was testing and preparing him as he moved him up to the backup spot.
In a preseason game that year, the Ram’s highly touted new acquisition Trent—the team’s starter—went down with a season ending knee injury. And just like that, Kurt Warner was suddenly thrust into the starting quarterback position, with a football destiny that now lay in his own hands.
In his debut as an NFL starter, Kurt performed solidly in a preseason game, and was intent on capitalizing on the opportunity of a lifetime he was right in the midst of. But other than Kurt, very few football observers had high expectations for him or the Rams that year. After all, the team was coming off of a dismal 3-13 season in 1998—and now with an unknown quarterback named Kurt Warner replacing Trent Green, it seemed to many as if the Rams went from rebuilding team to no-hoper. Vegas oddsmakers expected them to finish among the worst teams in the league, and most Rams fans were preparing themselves for a season that would be mediocre at best.
But Kurt Warner was unfazed by all the detractors and the odds he faced. As soon as the regular season started, he put up numbers and the Rams put up wins that left the football world stunned. In his first three games, Kurt threw for 896 yards and 9 touchdowns, and led his team to a perfect 3-0 start. Though critics were quick to point out that the Rams had faced fairly easy opposition up to that point, Kurt threw five touchdown passes the following week in a 42-20 torching of a strong 49ers team, and suddenly it seemed as if the Kurt-Warner-led Rams—thought to be not even worthy of much attention a few weeks ago—were now Super Bowl contenders.
An intriguing mystique also soon grew around the previously unheard of Kurt Warner. Several weeks into the season, he appeared on his first Sports Illustrated cover, accompanied by the headline “Who Is This Guy?”—a question that every NFL fan was asking. People grew increasingly fascinated about his highly unordinary rise to NFL stardom, and wondered how long his success could last.
Kurt and the Rams never cooled off that season.
In his first year as an NFL starter, five years after being passed up in the 1994 NFL Draft, Kurt Warner put together one of the greatest single season performances in league history, compiling 4,353 passing yards, 41 touchdown passes, just 13 interceptions, a 65.1% completion percentage, and a whopping 109.2 quarterback rating, as he led the Rams to an impressive 13-3 record.
Kurt was named the NFL’s regular season MVP, and all eyes were now on him and the Rams, as football fans were eager to see if they could carry their success into the playoffs and to a Super Bowl appearance.
In the team’s first playoff game, the Rams iced the Minnesota Vikings in a 49-37 shootout, led by Kurt’s five touchdown passes. In their next outing, the Rams took on a Tampa Bay Buccaneers team that featured a tough defense led by four Pro Bowlers. Kurt was put to the test when the Buccaneers led 6-5 late in the fourth quarter, which he responded to by completing a 30-yard touchdown pass in the game’s closing minutes. The Rams held on to their lead and advanced to the Super Bowl.
On January 30, 2000, the stage was set, and the Rams were pitted up against the formidable Tennessee Titans in Atlanta, Georgia for Super Bowl XXXIV. Kurt Warner waited in anticipation, ready to square off in the biggest game of his career, the culmination of an amazing season that took him from “Mr. Unknown” to “Mr. Media Darling.” As always, that year’s Super Bowl was covered with astronomical media coverage, and in Kurt Warner, the media found a fascinating target they put most of their attention squarely on.
In the game, Kurt and the Rams started off hot and built a 16-0 lead, only to watch the Titans battle back and even the score 16-16 late in the fourth quarter. Then, in one of the most exhilarating plays in Super Bowl history, Kurt let it rip and rifled a 73-yard completion to Isaac Bruce for the touchdown and the lead.
The Titans attempted to respond on their ensuing possession, but were stopped just one yard short of scoring as time ran out.
The Rams won, and Kurt’s Super Bowl record 414 passing yards earned him the game’s MVP award. It was a storybook ending to an unforgettable season for Kurt Warner.
Kurt then showed that he was not a one-season-wonder the next year, and finished with an impressive 98.3 passer rating. He followed with an even better 2001, capturing his second regular season MVP award, and once again led the Rams to the Super Bowl. But alas, that game saw the Rams being stopped just short of becoming an NFL dynasty, as their heavily underdogged opponents the New England Patriots prevailed in a dramatic last second finish.
Kurt struggled in 2002 and 2003 as he battled injuries, and in 2004 he left the Rams and joined the New York Giants, where he passed for over 2000 yards, despite having to split time with that season’s number one overall pick, quarterback Eli Manning. The next year, Kurt switched teams again and joined the Arizona Cardinals; and after passing for over 2700 yards in ten starts in 2005, he was awarded a three year contract, and figures to be a key part in an offense that’s shaping up to be one of the league’s best.
Even though Kurt has been an NFL superstar ever since his meteoric rise in 1999, he has also remained an active family man. In 1997 he adopted Brenda’s two children, and in 1999 he and Brenda had a son named Cade. Kurt spends much of his free time with his children and wife. He also contributes to many charities.
Kurt Warner’s unwillingness to give up his dream took him on astounding journey to the top of the sports world. Overlooked and passed on for years, Kurt refused to take the rejections as a sign to lie down and quit, as he made his own way to football success.