Kurt Warner’s second rise from obscurity is proof of his big-league talent

With five days remaining until The Biggest Day of The Year, it’s about that time to take a look at the one guy in Super Bowl XLIII who really shouldn’t be there ““ Kurtis Eugene Warner.

Everyone knows Kurt Warner ““ the Cardinals’ quarterback who took two laps between anonymity and stardom over the past decade. And everyone knows he’s old. Really old.

In case you haven’t seen his football cards, lately they’re looking more and more like Clint Eastwood ““ that’s “Space Cowboy,” not “Dirty Harry.”

To be fair, Warner has revived his career like someone smacked him in the face with a defibrillator. Back in 1996 while playing in the Arena Football League, the guy was nobody. Actually, nobody status was slightly out of reach for the Iowa Barnstormers quarterback. Killer Kurtis was about as well known as your local grocer, which makes sense considering when he signed with the Barnstormers, he had to quit his day job stocking shelves in Cedar Falls, Iowa.

Eyeball his AFL rookie card when you’ve got a minute. Right you are – that’s got to be taken in someone’s living room. There’s a young Warner in full pads and cleats, kneeling on someone’s rug in front of a drawn curtain. Professional football player? Puh-leeze. More like an oversized kid with football dreams getting his picture taken on Halloween.

The back of the card touts him as a two-time Gateway Player of the Week. If that sounds familiar it’s probably because you saw it on the back of a soccer mom’s Windstar.

The Barnstormers sponsor? Taco John’s. No joke. If the Barnstormers ever put up 100, I’m guessing enchiladas on the casa.

In his three years lighting up Arena Football as if he were the Marlboro Man, Warner took the ‘stormers to two Arena Bowls. When it came to the arena game, Warner was The Dude.

Then the St. Louis Rams came knocking and they didn’t care whose rug Warner was kneeling on. It could’ve really tied the whole room together – it didn’t matter. They wanted him.

So Warner went pro and found success like Columbus found the Indies.

His first season? Four completions for 39 yards. If that doesn’t say “Future Super Bowl MVP” I don’t know what does.

But Warner stuck around St. Louis and it paid off.

Big time.

One day in preseason during the summer of 1999, Rams starting quarterback Trent Green took a Rodney Harrison helmet to the knee. Green was out for the year and faster than you could say “world of pain,” Warner went from checking out at the counter to checking down to Marshall Faulk.

Before anybody knew that it wasn’t Green under center, Warner had ripped off a 13-3 regular season, starting every game and throwing for 4,353 yards. The Rams were “The Greatest Show on Turf” and Warner was the ringmaster.

Some things just don’t make sense. This was one of them.

In October of 1999, Sports Illustrated put Warner on the cover. The headline simply read: “Who Is This Guy?”

This Guy was The Dude.

In the 1999 season, Warner won the Super Bowl, the Super Bowl MVP and the league MVP in a trifecta of football flawlessness.

But good things don’t last forever.

Five years later with the Giants, he got benched for a kid who had “Manning” as his last name.

Typical.

Then he got benched for a McCown and then a Leinart.

But it might as well have been some bush league psyche-out stuff because getting relegated to headset duty didn’t fool Warner.

For some reason, he refused to turn in his spikes and go home.

Now, after a season all too reminiscent of “˜99, Warner’s back, against all the odds. I don’t know about you, but I’m rooting for the guy.

Because, after all, The Dude abides.

E-mail Feder at jfeder@media.ucla.edu if you’re out of your element.

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