Despite being the quarterback on a Super Bowl Champion football team, Kurt Warner’s journey to football fame was not an easy one. In the mid 1990’s after graduating college not many people were calling him to play professional football, so to make ends meet he stocked grocery shelves for a while.
Kurt met his soon to be wife, Brenda, a former corporal in the U.S. Marines and they were married in 1997. She was a single mother with two young children, one being a special needs child.
Her marriage with a fellow soldier had failed.
After becoming husband and wife, Kurt and Brenda have endured two miscarriages, the death of Brenda’s parents in a tornado, and Kurt’s roller coaster football career sometimes filled with boos and cheers at the same time from fans and critics.
Today, the Warners live in a large home in Paradise Valley, Arizona which is a bedroom community of Phoenix. After they were married Kurt adopted Zack, 8, who was legally blind and his sister, Jesse, 5. They have had five children of their own, two of which are twins. Kurt, 38, renewed his contract with the Arizona Cardinals in March for two years, after leading the team to the Super Bowl earlier this year.
The Warners have three top priorities in life which all begin with the letter F. They are Faith, Family and Football.
The same thing as God, Family and Job to those of us who don’t play football for a living. “We don’t have to schedule our kids,” Kurt told Noble Sprayberry in a story published in American Profile. “They are a top priority whether it is brushing their teeth or kissing them goodnight when they go to bed.”
Kurt was raised in a Catholic church and his faith peaked for him in his mid 20’s when his future wife, teammates and pastor friend questioned him about his beliefs. Leading others to believe in Jesus Christ is more important than throwing touchdown passes, he told Sprayberry.
Raised in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Kurt attended the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls. He first met Brenda that year who had been a cheerleader in Cedar Falls before joining the Marines after graduation, getting married and having her son Zack.
When Zack struck his head in an accident that caused permanent damage, she requested a discharge and the family settled in Cedar Rapids.
She and her husband’s marriage fell apart while she was pregnant with her second child.
Kurt’s football career began with Green Bay in 1994, then the Iowa Barnstormers and a season in NFL Europe. Finally in 1999 the St. Louis Rams signed him as a backup quarterback to Trent Green, who was injured during the season, so Kurt lead the Rams to a Super Bowl title in 2000 earning both the league and Super Bowl MVP awards.
In 2001 Kurt and Brenda started the First Things First Foundation in St. Louis which gives coats to needy children, helps single parents and helps sick children and their families. When he stops playing football Kurt says the foundation’s work will continue with Brenda by his side.
The Warners’ First Things First Foundation partnered with Phoenix Central High School in Phoenix recently to allow students to experience what it is like to be blind.
“The program is meant to open up your world, open up your mind and to open up your hearts,” Brenda, 42, told the students. “It’s easy for us to look around and say someone doesn’t look like a champion,” Kurt added, “But it’s not what they look like on the outside, rather it’s about what’s on the inside.”
Faith, Family and Football. That is what the Warner family is all about as they attempt to spread their message in the community in which they live.
Tribble is the president of Fayette Newspapers, Inc. |
