The Bigger Game: Kurt Warner

Like Pola­malu, Kurt Warner seeks to live his life as an exam­ple of his Chris­t­ian faith. Warner had also been to the Super Bowl before this one. He led the St. Louis Rams in two Super Bowl games, win­ning one of them. Kurt knows the pres­sure that comes with that kind of spot­light, espe­cially as a start­ing quar­ter­back. Unlike Pola­malu, how­ever, Warner knows that life in the NFL can be pretty hard if you don’t win.

Some peo­ple are call­ing Warner’s 2009 return to the Super bowl with the Ari­zona Car­di­nals a “come­back”. Kurt iden­ti­fies the time between his glory days with the Rams and his 2005 arrival in Ari­zona as a dark time that led him to seek God. Per­haps, instead of a come­back, this Super bowl visit was a reward for his fidelity.

Adver­sity has not been a stranger to Kurt. Warner began his career as a free agent, and had to prove him­self in Arena foot­ball and Euro­pean leagues before catch­ing his first big break and becom­ing a Super bowl champion.

In his per­sonal life, Kurt had to work hard to prove him­self to his wife when he first met her, as well. She had two chil­dren from a pre­vi­ous mar­riage, one of them a son with spe­cial needs. She tried to dis­cour­age his inter­est in her, but Kurt wouldn’t go away.

Today Kurt and his wife, Brenda, have seven chil­dren; he legally adopted the two she already had, and they have had five more together. Their fam­ily also strug­gled when Brenda’s par­ents, who had retired and just moved to Arkansas, were both trag­i­cally killed in a tor­nado. All of these events reminded Kurt that God is truly most impor­tant in life.

“If you ever really want to do a story about who I am, God’s got to be at the cen­ter of it. Every time I hear a piece or read a story that doesn’t have that, they’re miss­ing the whole les­son of who I am.” Kurt has told the Ari­zona Repub­lic how much it pains him when reporters don’t take his faith seriously.

He explains that he feels respon­si­ble because of the “plat­form that foot­ball has given him”, to share the truth of his faith with oth­ers. He doesn’t want to be “in your face” about it. It is just a very real part of who he is as a per­son. It has helped him han­dle adver­sity, and it has helped him to han­dle suc­cess as well.

Before the 2009 Super Bowl began Kurt was given a spe­cial honor, the Wal­ter Pay­ton NFL Man of the Year Award. This award is given to a player who gives self­lessly to his com­mu­nity. Kurt and Brenda have given more than $1.5 mil­lion and count­less hours of their time to char­i­ties like Make a Wish, Hab­bitat for Human­ity, the Spe­cial Olympics, and med­ical mercy mis­sions with the US Armed Forces. Kurt responded, “I am hum­bled the Lord has given me such an amaz­ing life to impact oth­ers. Of all the awards given to NFL ath­letes, the Wal­ter Pay­ton Man of the Year is the one that stands out above the rest to me because of what it rep­re­sents. When peo­ple look back at my career I want them to see a fierce com­peti­tor, but more impor­tantly, I want to be remem­bered for my con­sis­tency of char­ac­ter and the legacy I hope to leave…”

Although Ari­zona didn’t win the Super Bowl, Kurt played a great game. He had the sec­ond high­est pass­ing yardage in Super Bowl his­tory (Kurt also holds 1st and 3rd place in this cat­e­gory), and he broke the record for life­time Super Bowl pass­ing yards. Warner led his team in a fourth quar­ter come­back against the Steel­ers’ #1 rated defense, and nearly won the game if not for an amaz­ing Pitts­burgh drive in the final min­utes. Kurt said he was proud of his team­mates and all they had accomplished.

Fame, suc­cess, and foot­ball aren’t the dri­ving forces in these two ath­letes’ lives. Troy Pola­malu and Kurt Warner use their fame, suc­cess, and foot­ball, as instru­ments to glo­rify what they know is the most impor­tant thing in life: liv­ing a Chris­t­ian wit­ness, both to the world of foot­ball and beyond. They try to become men of char­ac­ter through foot­ball and their love of God, both on and off the field.

The Super Bowl is always the biggest game in foot­ball, but there is a big­ger game. It’s the the game of becom­ing real men and women. Exam­ples like Troy and Kurt help us to exam­ine our own lives and ask our­selves, are we win­ning the game about the most impor­tant things in life?