Warner Honored Where It All Began

Kurt Warner’s sudden rise to fame has brought him endorsement deals, appearances with Jay Leno and Billy Graham and more speaking engagements than he can count.

It also saved him from a speeding ticket.

Warner, who came out of nowhere to quarterback the St. Louis Rams to the Super Bowl championship, returned to his home state to have his jersey number retired by his former Arena League team, the Iowa Barnstormers, during Thursday night’s game with Tampa Bay.

He arrived in a police car with his wife, Brenda, and their oldest children, son Zach and daughter Jesse. It reminded Warner of an earlier incident with a police officer in Iowa.

En route to a Red Cross benefit, Warner said he was pulled over shortly after entering the state for going 19 mph over the limit.

“He comes up and recognizes me and says, ‘Hey, it’s a pleasure to meet you,”’ Warner said. “I’m thinking ‘All right, I’m in good shape.”’

Warner, the Super Bowl and NFL MVP, got off with a warning--and a favor.

“He said, ‘There’s one thing you could do for me.’ I’m thinking, ‘Yeah, sure, you just saved me a couple of hundred bucks,”’ Warner said. “He asked if I would get out of my truck and go back in front of the squad car and wave into his camera so that his son would really believe that he pulled over Kurt Warner.”

Life certainly has become more interesting -- and hectic -- for Warner, who only a few years ago was bagging groceries and stocking shelves in a supermarket. Just last week, he made national news when his appendix was removed.

“There’s so many good things that come out of it, but it is hard, especially as a mother,” Brenda said. “I want to protect my children. And that gets harder. Jesse and I try to have girls’ night and go shopping and I have to stop and give autographs. How goofy is that?”

Though he has not thrown a football since his May 16 appendectomy, Warner said he began working out again Monday and will be ready for minicamp next week.

“I feel great,” Warner said. “I think I could suit up and play tonight if coach needed me.”

“You’d have to play in a different number, though,” Barnstormers coach John Gregory said.

As flashbulbs popped throughout the stands and the crowd cheered, Warner and his family stood in a spotlight at halftime and watched as a larger-than-life replica of his No. 13 Barnstormers’ jersey was raised above the scoreboard at one end of the arena.

The team also presented Warner a regular-sized jersey in a picture frame.

“When I was back bagging groceries, nobody knew I was going to do this,” Warner said. “Thanks to the Iowa Barnstormers, I got an opportunity. I’m proud to be a part of Arena Football and hope I can be a great spokesman.”

Warner still does not have a contract for next season. He said the negotiations were still “up in the air” and he was leaving everything to his agent.

“I don’t want to get involved in any way, shape or form,” Warner said. “I’m going to worry about playing football. I’m very confident that something will get done, that hopefully it will be a long-term deal and we won’t have to move around any more.

“But a lot of it is in their hands. They know where we stand, that I want to be there. It’s up to them to see what level they want to come to me and whether they want to make that commitment to me as their starting quarterback.”

Warner, who’s from Cedar Rapids in eastern Iowa, played three seasons with the Barnstormers, throwing 186 touchdown passes and twice leading them to the Arena League championship game.