My wife tells me that "getting to know about the players" is the best way to get her interested in the game. So, in an effort to help bring marriages together on Super Bowl Sunday (and justify big screen televisions around the globe), I want to offer up this article about Brenda Warner from the Arizona Republic.
This time, Warner's wife is ready for the limelight
by Craig Harris - Jan. 28, 2009
The Arizona Republic
As her husband leads another improbable team to this Sunday's Super Bowl, Brenda Warner has been thrust into the spotlight again.
It's not something she sought or desired. The last time it happened, she got burned.
But there was no way to dodge it, especially after her husband, Kurt Warner, sought her out for a post-game embrace after his Arizona Cardinals won the NFC Championship and will play in Super Bowl XLIII. Cameras captured that moment, and shortly after, the quarterback choked up - twice - during a news conference when talking about his wife.
"None of this feels as good unless you can share it with someone. I get to share it with my best friend and the person I'm in love with, and that happens to be my wife," Warner said later. "We have done this together . . . and I wouldn't do it with anyone else."
Brenda Warner's journey, however, hasn't been easy, but she feels much more ready for the limelight this time around.
With her then-spiky short hair and long manicured nails, her looks and bright-blue outfit with a boa were picked apart when Kurt led the upstart St. Louis Rams to victory in Super Bowl XXXIV nine years ago.
Over the next few years, she gained notoriety after calling St. Louis talk-radio stations to defend her husband, who by 2003 had gone from Super Bowl Most Valuable Player to riding the bench. She even suggested a trade would be welcome. Such talk from a wife is taboo in the professional sports world.
Around that time, she also put her foot down and said "no" when St. Louis fans wanted an autograph from her husband while the family was out for dinner.
Friends say that Brenda was just protecting her family and that her tough side emerges from being a former Marine who has overcome major heartaches.
They say she is a compassionate woman who still collects thousands of coats for low-income kids in St. Louis and rocks babies to sleep at a Phoenix nursing center for chronically ill infants.
Her supporters add that she has a deep loyalty for her friends. And even with the demands of seven children, they say, she makes time for those in need.
"She's guarded about her family because that is her world," said Tina Wilkins, whose husband, Jeff, was a kicker for the Rams. "People misunderstood her and thought she was too involved in her husband's life. But a lot of us wives want to make a phone call and tell it the way it is."
Jeff Perry, who was the Warners' pastor in St. Louis, said the criticism Brenda Warner received was unfair.
"There is no class on how to respond to escalating media pressure," he said. "She came out of an obscure place and just got slammed."
Since moving to metro Phoenix four years ago, Warner has kept a low profile. She says what happened in the past is just a life lesson.
"At that time, things happened good and bad, and you live and learn," she said. "I'm going to be 42, and we are at the Super Bowl again, and I'm just looking at the positives."
Growing up with faith
Brenda Warner's story is as compelling as her husband's rags-to-riches tale.
She was born to Jenny and Larry Carney on June 17, 1967, in Parkersburg, a northern Iowa community of fewer than 2,000. Her father made transmissions for John Deere.
At age 12, Brenda's life took a spiritual turn when she and the rest of her family became Christians. She began reading the Bible and proclaimed her faith all the way through high school.
"Jesus Freak. That was my name," Warner said with a slight laugh. "But I'm proud of it."
Brenda excelled as a high-school cheerleader and was honored as an All-American. She didn't go to college for financial reasons and enlisted as a Marine.
Shortly after her 18th birthday, she was shipped to Okinawa, Japan, and in the military, she met her first husband.
The marriage lasted less than four years but produced two children: Zack and Jesse.
The oldest child, Zack, suffers from brain damage and a loss of vision from a childhood accident.
Divorced with two kids, Brenda moved back to Iowa, where she relied on her parents, food stamps, low-income housing and government medical benefits to make ends meet.
"The Christian thing didn't stop me from going through tough times, but I had that faith to hold me up when things were really bad," she said.
In 1992, she started nursing school and, while at a country bar, met a college quarterback four years her junior. They danced all night, but when Kurt Warner walked Brenda to her car, she told him there likely wasn't any future.
"I said I was divorced with two kids and if I never see you, I understand. But the next morning, he shows up at my door," she said.
The couple would date for five years, but during the lengthy courtship, tragedy again would occur.
In April 1996, a tornado ripped through Mountain View, Ark., where Brenda's parents had retired, killing them both.
"It was heartbreaking for her," said Stacy Weinke, who went to nursing school with Brenda.
But Weinke said the challenging life experiences made Brenda compassionate. When Weinke and her husband were flooded out of their Iowa home, the Warners sent four boxes of clothing and household goods.
"It's humbling and hard to be on the receiving end when you know you can never repay them for some of the things they do," Weinke said.
A year after Brenda's parents died, she and Kurt were married, and he adopted the two children. Soon after, their lives would dramatically change.
About family
In 1999, Kurt Warner was a former grocery-store stock boy, ex-Arena Football League player and NFL backup who came out of nowhere to lead the Rams to a Super Bowl victory.
He graced the cover of magazines, and, during that time, Zack's teachers stuffed his backpack with those periodicals seeking autographs.
"My son walked with a limp and couldn't see and he's carrying home Sports Illustrateds for Kurt to sign," Brenda said. "That made me realize we needed to make rules and parameters for the kids to be safe."
It was then that the no-autograph policy when the kids were around went into effect. Jesse, then 8, was trying to tell her dad a story at a restaurant and Kurt was constantly interrupted by people seeking an autograph.
"He doesn't want to be the bad guy, and he's not a bad guy, and it's against his nature to tell anybody 'No,' " she said. "But we have to make sure our kids are our priority."
Inside the family's spacious Paradise Valley home, it's evident who the priority is.
While Kurt's Super Bowl MVP trophy is tarnishing and rests under a stairwell, there's a glass trophy case near the kitchen filled with art projects done by the couple's seven children, who range from age 3 to 19.
Kitchen walls are peppered with framed drawings of stick figures and squiggly red glitter art done by the little kids. In the nearby workout room are 38 large black-and-white family pictures, most of them portraits of the children that Brenda photographed.
The youngest ones, twin girls Sienna and Sierra, came after the Warners moved to Arizona.
Brenda had two miscarriages while Kurt played one controversial season for the New York Giants, where he lost his starting job.
Brenda, who had never miscarried before, said she was emotionally rocked.
"Little did I know Kurt was praying that God would restore what was lost. I wish he would have prayed to have one at a time, but God took it as twins," she said with a grin.
The twins also are part of the reason for Brenda's longer hair, a subject that has been bantered about on Internet chat sites.
Brenda said she had kept her hair short because that's the way Kurt liked it, but she grew it out while on bed rest for the final two months of the twins' pregnancy.
"How many people care about my hair?" she said with a laugh. "I find it trivial. I am more than my hair."
One place no one bothers to ask about her hair is Hacienda HealthCare, a 24-hour care facility for medically fragile children near South Mountain.
Staci Glass, Hacienda's marketing director, said that, for the past year, Brenda Warner has quietly checked in nearly every week and rocked infants. She recruited seven other Cardinals players' wives to go to the facility, and she donated eight rocking chairs.
Warner said her time at Hacienda allows her to just be herself.
"The football stuff is what people find exciting, but the real-life stuff to me is what means so much more," she said. "When football is all over, there will be another chapter. We are not done with what's important."
--- So there you go. Pretty great story.
Go Cardinals!
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