Kurt Warner breaks Super Bowl passing record, become MVP

ATLANTA - It wasn't the best pass Kurt Warner ever threw, but it was the best pass Kurt Warner ever threw.

With his St. Louis Rams and the Tennessee Titans engaged in a 16-16 tie late in Sunday's Super Bowl at the Georgia Dome, the son of Cedar Rapids heaved a long throw down the right sideline to All-Pro receiver Isaac Bruce. Bruce had to stop and back up a step to catch the ball at the Titans' 42-yard line. He then eluded Tennessee's defense to blaze for a touchdown with 1:54 remaining.

The Rams' defense withstood a furious Titans rally that ended at the St. Louis 1 as time Turn to 7A: Hlas Hlas: Warner breaks Montana's passing yardage record elapsed, and Warner's team had become football kings of the world with their 23-16 coronation.

"As you know," Rams offensive coordinator Mike Martz said after the game, "a lot of times those (under throws) are the best ones." Warner did throw all sorts of passes that were looked as sharp as the Ford F-150 truck he will be presented with at a press conference here this morning. He set a Super Bowl record for passing yardage with 414, breaking Joe Montana's 11-year-old mark of 357. He was named the game's Most Valuable Player, joining an elite list that includes quarterbacks such as Bart Starr, Joe Namath, Terry Bradshaw, John Elway and the great Montana.

But none of those legends of the game had a success story as unlikely as Warner's. By game time Sunday, just about every newspaper in the country had mentioned that the former Regis High School student had stocked shelves at night in a Cedar Falls Hy-Vee for six months in 1995 while working out during the daytime. At the time, Warner was hoping to get another shot in the NFL in pro football.

He was released by the Green Bay Packers in training camp the summer of 1994 after his senior season at the University of Northern Iowa. He played Arena Football with the Iowa Barnstormers for three years. He played in NFL Europe for the Amsterdam Admirals. He finally hooked on in the NFL with the Rams in 1998, barely. He played a mop-up role in the fourth quarter of the last game of the '98 season, impressing no one.

That normally is the story of a journeyman, not an NFL regular-season and Super Bowl MVP. Warner was pressed into starting service in 1999 late in the preseason because expensive free-agent signee Trent Green - who, coincidentally, was born in Cedar Rapids - blew out a knee. Rams fans, coaches and players were devastated. Until Warner threw three TD passes in the season-opener. You know the rest.

"It has been a great year," Warner said after the game. "What else can you say? It has been tremendous. I am truly blessed."

Asked if he was an inspiration for the overlooked of the world, he answered, "Don't let anybody tell you that you can't reach it, no matter what you have to do along the way, as long as you keep that dream inside of you and believe that you can accomplish it.

"As I have always said, if I could be a source of hope to anybody out there, then I am happy to be a part of it. But when it is your life, you just take it day by day. You take what the good Lord gives you and you use it to the best way you can, following the things that he has got in store for you."

Warner's rise from obscurity to national acclaim has been called a fairy tale by reporters from all over the nation and beyond.

"Kurt Warner is Kurt Warner," Rams Coach Dick Vermeil said. "It is not a fairy tale; it is real life. He is an example of what we all like to be on and off the field. He is a great example of persistence and believing in himself and a deep faith.

"What else can you write? He is a movie. He is a book, this guy."

Warner undoubtedly will be a movie and a book or two later this year. They will have the happiest of endings.

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