Overlooked Warner never allowed dream to pass by

By Jim McCabe, Globe Staff, 2/3/2002

Graphic: Kurt Warner's season

EW ORLEANS How many sides to the story are there? So many that at every turn, it's difficult to find any that have grown stale.

The road from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, to NFL glory is one that could be traveled only by the lead character in a feel-good novel written by a fiction writer with the wildest of imaginations. A Division 1-AA quarterback from a small town spends a few weeks in a pro football camp, a fourth-stringer lost in the shadow of a future Hall of Famer, then gets cut and takes a job at a 24-hour grocery store in his hometown, where he keeps his throwing arm in shape by tossing Charmin and rolls of paper towels to coworkers. Keep the football theme alive by placing him on teams named the Barnstormers and Admirals in the Arena Football League and NFL Europe, and don't overlook the romantic angle. Introduce this lead character to a recently divorced woman with two young children, one of whom had suffered brain damage when accidentally dropped after a bath when he was just months old. The child is blind; the couple fall madly in love, marry, and have two children of their own.

So much human interest, but such a story needs a boffo ending, so our lead character gets another shot at an NFL job and somehow walks into the starting job when the heralded free agent gets hurt in training camp.

Enough syrup? No, because once entrusted with the starting job, an unstoppable offense takes shape around him and he leads his team - playing in a city that has forever cheered for a league doormat - to the Super Bowl title, wins MVP honors, and two years later plugs the team back in position for another championship.

Come on, who'd believe such a tale?

Only someone who didn't know the Kurt Warner saga, that's who. The St. Louis quarterback, whom the Patriots must attempt to contain in today's 36th edition of the Super Bowl, is a real-life cross between ''The Natural'' and ''Rocky.'' He has traveled a most heartfelt road, all the while embracing a religious conviction matched only by a belief in his own football skills.

On the road to glory, Warner took so many twists and turns that hardly anyone noticed, leaving a trail of voices to recount the story they never saw unfolding. We start with one stop on the road, a Saturday evening in November 1993, a Division 1-AA playoff game at Nickerson Field in Boston, and the voices of two players who can talk forever of their link to greatness.

''When you're on offense, you pay attention only to guys on the other team's defense, so no, I didn't know anything about him.''

The voice belongs to Robert Dougherty, the Boston University quarterback that cold night. He was the heralded 1-AA player who was generating the interest of pro scouts, and when he drove the Terriers back from a 21-6 deficit to a 27-21 win, it never occurred to him that the Northern Iowa quarterback would be the one to travel the pro route.

''I mean, he was good, but not so good that he stood out,'' said Dougherty, a school teacher and head football coach at Corcoran High School in Corcoran, Calif.

If anything, it was Warner's favorite target, wide receiver Dedric Ward, now with the Miami Dolphins, who posed the biggest threat. Warner? ''He was just another quarterback, a no-name like the rest of us,'' said Chris Helon, who carries a special memory from that game. It was his first-quarter interception that stopped a Northern Iowa drive, the Terrier defender snaring Warner's pass intended for Ward in the end zone.

Helon remembers the play. ''Vividly,'' he said. Helon, who still lives in Boston, remembers Warner scrambling from the pocket and trying to throw across his body toward Ward. ''He was rolling right, receivers everywhere were open, but [Warner] was too far away,'' said Helon. ''The pass was underthrown.''

The memory was long forgotten until a few years ago when a 6-foot-2-inch, 220-pound quarterback started throwing strikes in every direction to spearhead an impressive St. Louis attack under coach Dick Vermeil. There were 325 completions in 499 attempts during that 1999 season, an eye-popping 4,353 yards, 65.1 completion percentage, 109.2 rating, and NFL-best 41 touchdowns.

Oh, and he completed the fairy-tale season with a 73-yard touchdown pass to Isaac Bruce with 1:54 left to give the Rams the Super Bowl title.

Good gracious, who was this guy? The name sounded vaguely familiar, and slowly Dougherty and Helon made the connection. Who could have known?

''We have our stories and some fun stuff to talk about,'' said Helon. ''Just amazing.''

Dougherty and Helon needn't feel embarrassed they missed out on something special right below their chin straps, because some respected NFL personnel guys did, too.

Gil Brandt, for instance. For years the man behind the Cowboys, Brandt can laugh today, because when the story captivated folks in 1999, he remembers thinking to himself that he had scouted Northern Iowa in 1992 but couldn't remember Warner. He satisfied his curiousity by calling a school publicist and was told Warner had been beaten out for the job that season.

''So I guess we better go find that kid because if he beat out Kurt Warner, he ought to be playing in our league,'' said Brandt.

Another voice, this from Ron Wolf, the architect for Green Bay's rejuvenation in the '90s, including a Super Bowl championship in 1997. Warner was the fourth quarterback in the Packers' camp in 1994, ''but I can't remember him,'' said Wolf. ''Honestly, I don't.''

No surprise, for the undrafted free agent was tucked in behind Brett Favre, Mark Brunell, and Ty Detmer, the third-stringer a Heisman Trophy winner. Understandably, Warner's stay lasted a short time. His ego bruised but his faith in the Bible intact, Warner returned to the Hy-Vee grocery store in Cedar Falls, stocking shelves for $5.50 an hour.

''I was damn happy to have the job, too,'' he said.

Back home, he became reacquainted with Brenda, whom he had known from his days at Northern Iowa. Four years older, she was divorced and the mother of two children, including Zachary, now 10. Brenda believes her prayers pulled Zachary through when doctors said he'd die, and in Warner she discovered a man strong in faith and character.

Her parents in Arkansas would die in a tornado in 1996, a tragedy that brought Brenda and Kurt even closer. They married in 1997.

''The Lord never puts any more on you than you can handle,'' said Warner, raised in a devout Catholic home but now an evangelical Christian. ''When you are sincere in what you believe in and what you stand for, and you stand for it in every situation, I don't think it causes barriers.''

Warner told his coworkers at the Hy-Vee he'd someday play in the NFL, but they laughed as they tossed the paper items up and down the aisle and held kicking contests in the loading dock. He just may not have known the route he would take, a magical ride that began with the Iowa Barnstormers of the Arena Football League (1995-97) and continued with the Amsterdam Admirals in NFL Europe (1998).

It was a struggle in Amsterdam - not with football, but with the social climate. A former teammate, Todd Doxzon, said he and Warner used to pray together so that they would ride right through the red-light district and not stop. Withstanding that temptation goes a long way toward defining Warner's strength.

''I try to practice what I preach and live out the statements I make,'' said Warner. Asked if he still read the Bible, he nodded. ''I don't have it memorized yet,'' he said, ''so until I do, I read it every night.''

Dougherty tried the pro route, first in Canada, then with Barcelona of NFL Europe. Things didn't work out, and while he doesn't take anything away from Warner (''He's obviously pretty good, but I think he's on a pretty good football team''), he can't help but wonder what would have happened if Warner hadn't received a huge break in 1999, when the Rams' starting quarterback, Trent Green, was injured in a preseason game.

Dougherty is not alone. So, too, was Vermeil surprised. He's acknowledged that he thought the Rams could win with Warner, but didn't expect them to win because of him. Warner is humble, too, saying he is blessed to be surrounded by great players in an offensive scheme that accentuates his ability to throw quick, accurate aerials.

''It's not the same old thing with this team,'' said Warner. ''We just let it go, throw caution to the wind, and let guys do their thing. It's a lot of fun to be part of.''

Oh, how it's been fun these last three seasons, because Warner has completed a whopping 66.9 percent of his passes (939 of 1,403) for 12,651 yards and 98 touchdowns. Those are numbers most quarterbacks would beg for for a career; they're Warner's output for a mere 43 regular-season starts. That the team beefed up its Achilles' heel - its defense, which was largely responsible for a wild-card playoff exit last season - and made it back to the Super Bowl is quite satisfying for Warner.

''You couldn't help but sit back and enjoy the ride [in 1999],'' he said. ''It was a fairy-tale ride. This year was more of a struggle because we were the hunted all year long, the team to beat, expected to be here. So getting here is a little more sweet.''

Perhaps because he's proven that he's no fluke? Warner shook his head slowly. ''I've never taken that approach,'' he said. ''I knew what I was doing in 1999 wasn't odd or strange to me. It wasn't something that I couldn't do again. As much as everyone wanted to make me a one-year wonder, or this team a one-year wonder, I think the guys in the locker room never looked at it with that approach.''

Heralded collegiate quarterbacks have been turning into NFL busts for a long, long time, and Warner understands why. ''You don't know what a quarterback is all about until you see them under fire,'' he said. ''You take first-round draft picks and throw them to the wolves and you expect them to be an MVP in the first year. High expectations puts on a lot of pressure.''

To Warner, the only pressure at this point in his career is self-imposed. He embraced religion before fame embraced him, and he acknowledges that his public words about faith and ''being placed in this position by the Lord'' could backfire if he were to turn weak.

''I put the pressure back on me,'' he said. ''I say, `OK, now you're an example. People are watching.' This is my greatest chance to be an example.''

The Patriots understand they are undertaking perhaps the greatest challenge of recent NFL days: trying to stop a St. Louis offense that this season scored 503 points and gained an average of 418.1 yards per game. Warner knows his team is a 14-point favorite, but ''when we line up today, it's not about what everybody else thinks, it's about winning a football game.''

No one was ready to dispute that, but a reporter found irony in the fact that Warner will be one of the focal points in a game being played in a city that is teeming with sin, from late-night parties to voodoo stores to Bourbon Street mayhem.

It's not his kind of city, he was told. But Warner wore a sly grin, knowing that most of his NFL story has not really fit the mold.

''There's a Super Bowl here,'' he said. ''So that makes it my kind of city.''