Real Kurt Warner Story Better Than the Email Version!

I don't know how to write this post. I will try to be short. I received and email today that I thought I had to let everyone know about. But, before I post about any emails I like to check them out on http://www.snopes.com/ to make sure they aren't fabricated. Well, some of the basic parts are true, but the real story is even better!

Basically, the email told of how Kurt Warner and his wife, Brenda met and how she had two children, one with a "handicap". The story talks about how Kurt convinced Brenda to go on a date with him and how he cared for her kids, especially her son, who was in a wheelchair. Well, I tried to give you the main points without all the (wrong) details. The real details are much better than the email, in my opinion. If you want to read the email, comment below and as long as you agree not to send it to anyone else, I will send it to you. Here is what Snopes said was the truth. (You can find it here.)

Origins: The premise of the above-quoted story — that NFL
quarterback Kurt Warner (now with the Arizona Cardinals) married the mother of
two children, one of whom which had severe medical problems — is true. On the
other hand, most of the key details given in the now widely e-mailed story are
wrong. (Which in itself is a crying shame because the real story about Kurt's
and Brenda's path through life is far more inspiring than this factually
incorrect one.)

Let's address the inaccuracies first: Kurt and Brenda did
not meet while both were working in a grocery store, so you can throw out all
that bit about his mooning over her time card. They met in 1992 at a country bar
while he was Northern Iowa's starting quarterback. (After being cut by the Green
Bay Packers in 1994, Kurt did find employment in a grocery store, though: He
stocked shelves at a Hy-Vee in Cedar Falls for $5.50 an hour.) The next morning
Kurt brought Brenda roses and wanted to meet her youngsters. She'd told Kurt
about her children the night before, so there was no dramatic surprise when she
introduced her disabled son. The Warners' was a lengthy courtship. They married
in 1997 after meeting in 1992 (not "a year later," as the e-mail has it). Brenda
(who is four years older than Kurt) had two children by a previous marriage;
however, the e-mail version has their birth order reversed. In real life,
Zachary is three years older than his sister, Jesse Jo. (More on this seemingly
picayune point later because it's pivotal to the real story of Brenda Warner's
life before Kurt.)

Zachary Warner (born in 1989) does indeed have serious
physical infirmities, but how he came by them is far more of a story than the
Internet fiction lets on. He was a perfectly healthy infant, not a Down Syndrome child.
When he was four months old, his father dropped him, and in the blink of an eye,
this previously healthy baby was suddenly clinging to life, his grip slipping
fast. He suffered severe brain damage, and both of his retinas were ruptured. At
the time, few thought Zachary would live, and fewer still held out any hope he
would ever see, sit up, read, walk, or talk. Zachary's recovery has been long
and arduous, but he now walks and talks. Though still legally blind, he can make
out colors and shapes. No longer strictly a special-needs student, he is
integrated for half-days in a regular high school classroom. Kurt adopted
Zachary and Jesse after his wedding to Brenda in 1997. The Warners have since
added five more children to their brood: Kade in 1998, Jada in 2001, Elijah in
2003, and twins Sienna and Sierra in 2005. 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!" Zachary's birth dad could hardly be described in similar fashion.
An inability to come to terms with the injuries he'd visited upon his son led to
the breakup of his marriage to Brenda. He left her when she was eight months
pregnant with Jesse.

Over and above the numerous inaccuracies, the worst
offense this particular e-mailed glurge is guilty of is omission. Not content
with recasting the details of the Warners' lives (and the reality had the
fiction beat, remember), it leaves by the wayside horrendously large chunks of a
truly thrilling story of the sort one usually pays $9.00 to see at the movies:

- All the heartbreak Kurt endured trying to get into the
NFL, and the many setbacks he had to weather along the way. So many of our
gridiron heroes go in as highly touted draft picks it's sometimes hard to
realize some take a tortuous path to the pigskin paradise of the NFL. Kurt
presented as a free agent to the Green Bay Packers in 1994, was signed, then cut
by them that same year. In 1997 he had a tryout scheduled with the Chicago Bears
which fell through when an injury sustained during his honeymoon rendered him
hors de combat. (A venomous spider had bitten him on his throwing elbow.) He had
to muck about in the Arena and European leagues before finally being taken on by
the Rams in 1997 as their third-string quarterback. In 1999 he stepped in during
the preseason in place of injured Trent Green and began almost immediately to
rewrite Rams' history.

- Brenda's battle to make a life for herself and her two
children after her first husband deserted her. This former Marine had to return
to her parents' home when she was eight months pregnant with her second child
and with a brain-damaged child already in tow. She completed her nursing
training during this period, getting by with the help of food stamps and student
loans.

- The death of Brenda's parents in Mountain View,
Arkansas, in a tornado in 1996. They'd retired there just a year earlier.

- Kurt's embracing of Christianity in 1996. (Although he
was raised a Catholic, he dates his spiritual awakening to those dark days in
the wake of the deaths of Brenda's parents.)

- Kurt's throwing for a record 414 yards in his 23-16
Super Bowl XXXIV victory over the Tennessee Titans and being named that
contest's Most Valuable Player. This new mark topped the previous record of 357
yards set by San Francisco's Joe Montana in Super Bowl XXIII and capped an
astounding 4,353-yard, 41-touchdown regular season that won him league MVP
honors. As you can see, falling in love with and then marrying a gal who had two
children, one of them a special needs child, was just part of this most
remarkable story. In Super Bowl XXXVI, Kurt Warner led the St. Louis Rams in
their quest for another victory; although they came up just short, Warner was
already the stuff of legends.

Deservedly. Barbara "it's a warner-ful life" Mikkelson

Last updated: 20 June 2007