Warner gaining new fans at his old stomping grounds

It's a neat little idea based more on learning mathematics than sports.

Third-grade teacher Barb Kruth began, of all things, a Fantasy Football league for students at All Saints elementary school in Cedar Rapids last year.

Kids who wanted to participate gathered in August and were given rosters of NFL players and a pretend $100,000,000 to "purchase" them. Then they got together regularly throughout the football season and figured out how many fantasy points their teams had.

"It's a lot of fun," Kruth said. "The kids really enjoy it."

Kruth has set up a regular-season fantasy league the past two years, as well as a postseason league that includes only players on teams who made the NFL playoffs. There's no doubt who was the most popular quarterback picked. Here's a hint: he went to All Saints when it was a middle school.

"Quite a few kids have picked Kurt," Kruth said with a laugh.

That's Kurt, as in Kurt Warner. The Cedar Rapids native has led the Arizona Cardinals to their first Super Bowl, the third of his illustrious NFL career.

This is another chance for the city's Catholic community to rejoice and celebrate the accomplishments of one of its own. Warner, 37, graduated from All Saints and Regis High School, which is now a middle school.

You're finding a lot of people at those schools and Xavier High School - what Regis and LaSalle merged into - this week reminiscing about Warner.

"Just a very polite, very considerate young man," Kruth said. "The boys in his class here just loved football. At recess, all they wanted to do was throw the football around."

"My fourth and fifth-graders have been asking about him," said Mike Gallagher, a physical education instructor at All Saints for 31 years. "I've been telling them about him and the Punt, Pass and Kick competition we have every year. I said ‘Yeah, if I remember right, he was my first kid to place in that contest.' One year I think he finished second in the city. I couldn't have ever predicted back then what he would go on and do."

What Warner has done is make a serious case to be in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. If you ask anyone at All Saints, Regis or Xavier, there's no question he deserves to be enshrined.

"I was telling some people that if the Cardinals would win just one playoff game, that would validate everything Kurt has done," said Xavier Activities Director Mike Winker, who was a volunteer assistant coach for Warner's freshman football team at Regis. "It's very exciting. (In 1999) it was rags to riches. This has been more of a rebirth."

They held a big viewing party in the Xavier auditorium for the 1999 Super Bowl, Warner's first with the St. Louis Rams. Like 2001, Warner's second Super Bowl appearance, there's nothing extraordinary planned Sunday at All Saints, Regis or Xavier.

Everyone will have to gather in their respective living rooms to watch the Cardinals and Pittsburgh Steelers. That's a sign of apathy, mind you, or that the folks in the Catholic Community are treating this Super Bowl with less enthusiasm. It's just that the first time is the first time.

"I don't have the Kansas City Star or the St. Louis Post-Dispatch coming in looking for stuff this time," Regis Principal Rick Blackwell said with a laugh. "Everybody is pumped about it. I haven't heard a whole lot from the kids, but I know they're excited. I know there's more Arizona fans in school than Pittsburgh fans."

"I don't think it's really set in with a lot of the students," said Xavier senior football player Chase Cooling. "You realize what's going on, but you don't fully understand (the significance)."

Xavier senior Dan Thortenson remembers meeting Warner a few years ago.

"He was up here shooting hoops with his brother," Thortenson said. "I heard he was here, so I came up with a friend. I got to shake his hand."

Winker mentioned how often Warner would just show up out of the blue at Xavier when he played in St. Louis and was regularly able to make the short trip to Cedar Rapids to visit family. He also mentioned - rather grudgingly - that Warner has "done some things for us" over the years that neither Warner nor Xavier wants to publicize.

That's the thing about Warner and Masters golf champion Zach Johnson, a fellow Regis graduate. Their respective success, people say, hasn't changed them.

"Both Kurt and Zach," Winker said. "As much as they've done, they are better people than athletes."

You don't need a big party to celebrate that.

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