Warner, Kurt

▪ 2001

      With 1 minute 54 seconds left to play and the score tied 16–16 in Super Bowl XXXIV on Jan. 30, 2000, St. Louis Rams quarterback Kurt Warner lofted a 73-yd touchdown pass to wide receiver Isaac Bruce. The play led to a 23–16 victory for the Rams over the Tennessee Titans and was a fitting climax to a storybook year for the 28-year-old Warner, who only a few years before had been working as a stock boy at an Iowa grocery store. In the Super Bowl, which came at the end of Warner's first season as a starting quarterback in the National Football League (NFL), he completed 24 of 45 passes for a record 414 yd, including two touchdowns, and threw no interceptions in the game. His performance earned him the Bowl's Most Valuable Player (MVP) award. He had already been voted the league's MVP, having led the Rams to a 13–3 regular-season record. With 41 touchdown passes, he joined Dan Marino as the only NFL players to have surpassed the 40 mark in a single season.

      Warner was born on June 22, 1971, in Burlington, Iowa. Unable to land a football scholarship to a Division I college, he attended the University of Northern Iowa, where he did not become a first-string player until his fifth and final year. After an unsuccessful tryout with the NFL's Green Bay Packers in 1994, he played football in the Arena Football League with the Iowa Barnstormers from 1995 to 1997. Between seasons, in order to support his wife and three children and to be free to work out during the day, he stocked grocery shelves at night for $5.50 an hour. In 1998 he signed with the Amsterdam Admirals of NFL Europe. Starting all 10 games for the Admirals that season, he led the league in passing with 2,101 yd.

      He was called up by St. Louis for the 1998–99 NFL season and spent the year as a backup quarterback, starting only in the final game of the team's 4–12 season. When first-string quarterback Trent Green injured his knee during the 1999 preseason, Warner became the team's starter. His phenomenal performance thereafter seemed to stun everyone except Rams coach Dick Vermeil and Warner himself. “It is not a fairy tale,” said Vermeil, who praised Warner's persistence. “[Warner] has a willingness to accept coaching and criticism and was willing to work and play a subordinate role until he got the opportunity and then took advantage of it.” For his part, Warner credited the support of his family and his deep Christian faith for helping him through the tough times. Speaking after the Super Bowl, he also thanked those in the Rams organization, stating, “Everybody—the players, the coaches—their belief in me has been tremendous.”

David R. Calhoun

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