Kurt Warner: A Magnanimous Man

Rams’ Super Bowl quarterback Kurt Warner is a not only a football hero, he is a human hero.

This is an underdog who made it big.

While he still is a very good quarterback, he has remained a humble man who did not let his legendary play – which was known as legendary while he played during his Super Bowl run – and the glitter and glitz of success, wealth and the fame of professional sports corrupt his humanity.

He does not mistake his own success with what God has blessed him with; rather, Kurt Warner gives to God all of the successes he has achieved. Warner does this by living as an example of how a good person should live; that he is a Christian is noteworthy, but his example should stand out to people of all religions.

The Green Bay Packers cut Warner in 1994, and who can blame them because they knew what they had found in Favre by then. As a result, he stocked shelves at a Cedar Falls Hy-Vee for $5.50 an hour. If you add up his football contract and divide it by his football hours, that’s probably what he has been paid per minute over the course of his successful career.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m not Kurt Warner the Ram lover. This guy and the Rams dethroned the Niners’ 12 of a 13-season run as NFC West champs.

The Niners had beat the Rams 17 out of the past 18 games, which was vitally important to me, because as a kid, Mario’s, my brother, favorite team was the Rams and they always seemed to beat the Niners. That really upset me. Actually, it still does. I'm sure my brother enjoyed the Rams' success, even though by then Mario had tragically passed away.

Although the rivalry has diminished a bit because the team is now in St. Louis, I still "hate" the Rams and everything about them, including Warners' Super Bowl run.

I say the Niners will end up in L.A. because the Bay Area is too stupid to work with the the team to build a stadium, but that’s another story.

As a sports fan, a 49er Faithful since I tasted my first mouthful of sourdough and clam chowder as a tot in the Bay Area, it is easy for sports-loving fans, especially 49er Faithful, to understand why I “hated” Warner with a passion during his two Super Bowl run. The guy was scintillating; sports prognosticators were saying he was the second coming of Joe Montana but better.

All the same junk you hear about Brett Favre. Yes, they are great quarterbacks, Favre having better stats, but even Favre could not compare to the Martz offense nor Warner's accuracy and success during the years that Warner prospered.

Look up Warner on the Web and you will find his amazing stats; but, again, it’s Warner the Christian who is more inspiring because he has been able to incorporate his religious humanity in a league that pits quarterbacks on the same team against each other.

Case in point: Warner plays behind former USC star quarterback Matt Leinart, who has had great difficulty adapting to the NFL, although many of those same idiot sports prognosticators said Leinart was the quantum coming of Joe Montana, since every potentially good or every great quarterback is somehow compared to Montana.

Montana Leinart is not, and this young man has not even had the success that Warner has enjoyed.

Warner, although he towers over Leinart and is a better quarterback in my opinion at this time in the former Trojan’s career, remains ever so humble and actually helps Leinart learn the NFL quarterbacking secrets to success.

This is not something Favre did for Aaron Rodgers, at least not to the extent that Warner has extended himself.

It’s Warner the magnanimous Christian, a servant of Jesus, who married a woman who had two children, one of whom had been, to use a politically incorrect word, crippled when his father dropped him on his head.

This young boy nearly died, but when Warner met his wife Brenda, the video of whom in the stands cheering on her husband used to turn my stomach as a loyal and 49er Faithful, he accepted both children and eventually adopted them.

This is goose-bump stuff as I write it. This is a truly magnificent man, one whom we should all look up to, although he would have nothing of this because he is, as I said, HUMBLE.

I can’t believe I’m writing this about a former Ram who dethroned my beloved Niners, but you non-sports fans don’t understand that when we rip athletes, like I have with Favre, mostly with entire satire, except Favre cheated by allowing a record-setting sack, we are having fun.

Sure, some take it too seriously and want to kick my butt as they tell me, but it should all be good-natured fun even though the satire can really sting someone if you are a good writer.

(In fact, the true test for a satirical writer is if you can write satire about yourself. If you can, then you are indeed an accomplished writer. In other words, we should never take ourselves too seriously. I believe I could write hilarious satires about my successes and failures and maybe I will. After all, self-deprecating humor is a strength of mine and something that makes other people laugh. That makes me happy.)

OK, back to Warner the noble man. Through Warner and his wife’s devout Christian faith, their prayers have been answered as this now young man has made a dramatic recovery. This is a young man whose retinas were ruptured when he was dropped. This is a story that proves prayer works, especially devout prayer that only asks for God’s will, rather than our own. We are never promised anything when we pray; only that our prayers will be answered.

The challenge, at times, is to deal with whatever God answers with and that is a very real challenge of mine at the moment. So that's why the Warners' example inspires me.

And that is a theme of the Warners': doing God’s will, not their own.

Whether Warner is a success in the NFL or not is not a concern to him; what is a concern is that he be a righteous man worthy of being a good Christian man, which he is beyond any doubt.

His influence on his son Zach, who suffered the terrible injuries, has been tremendous.

You can read about Warner on many Web sites, but this information from Snopes.com is truly inspiring: “As for what sort of lad Zachary is and what kind of relationship he enjoys with his adoptive father, this anecdote should say it all: After the Rams victory in the NFC Championship game in 2000, 10-year-old Zachary presented Kurt with a homemade card done in Rams blue and gold. Inside, in childlike scrawl, it read: ‘You're as good a dad as you are a quarterback!’”

And we should also look to his wife, Brenda, a former U.S. Marine, whose first husband reportedly was unable to deal with dropping his young son that inflicted so much damage. Through her example, her actions, she has also helped her husband and her children. She is also a living testament to so much that Jesus Christ tried to teach all of us wayward souls – many of whom, me included at times, have not listened to.

If the Warners’ story and Zach’s card don’t hit you in the gut, straight to the heart, give you goose bumps or something, then you are in need of a spiritual tune-up. For guidance, I suggest following the example that Kurt Warner, the Christian, not the NFL quarterback, and his wife, Brenda, also a Christian, have provided for us. We can learn so much from them.