Kurt Warner Biography

Kurt Warner was born Kurtis Eugene Warner, on June 22, 1971, in Burlington, Des Moines County, Iowa, US, to Gene and Sue Warner. He grew up with his older brother, Matt.

Warner initially attended the Regis High School, from where he graduated in 1989. He failed to get a football scholarship to a Division I-A college. He thus studied communications at the University of Northern Iowa, where he was part of the Northern Iowa Panthers football team.

After he finally got the chance to start for the team in his fifth year, his performances won him the First-Team All-Conference and the Gateway Conference's Offensive Player of the Year honors. He graduated from the university in 1993.

Warner was not picked in the 1994 NFL Draft. He was, however, invited to join the Green Bay Packers training camp that year but was released before the beginning of the regular season.

Following this, he started working as a night-shift stock clerk at a Cedar Falls Hy-Vee grocery store. In 1995, Warner joined the Arena Football League (AFL) team Iowa Barnstormers.

He soon joined the Northern Iowa football team as a graduate assistant coach. In the 1998 NFL season, Warner joined the St. Louis Rams and spent an entire year as a backup quarterback for them. He eventually played in the final game of the season.

After starting quarterback Trent Green got his knee injured in the 1999 preseason, Warner filled in as the team’s starter. That season, he ended up leading the NFL in touchdowns thrown, passer rating, and pass completion percentage, while the Rams won 13 games, scripting history with the league’s second biggest single-season win improvement.

Warner won the NFL Most Valuable Player (MVP) honor that season, and the Rams secured a place in the Super Bowl in January 2000. At the Super Bowl, Warner threw a record 414 yards and became the MVP, while his team beat the Tennessee Titans to clinch their first Super Bowl title. The same year, Warner helped the Rams reach the play-offs, but they lost in the opening round.

In 2001, Warner was a leading NFL scorer in all major passing categories and won his second MVP honor. Though the Rams were favorites in the Super Bowl that year, they ended up being defeated by the New England Patriots.

In the 2002 season, he missed most of the games due to an injury. In 2003, too, he was mostly part of the back-up squad of the Rams.

Warner left the Rams by the end of the year and then joined the New York Giants, signing a one-year, $3 million contract with the latter. Though he played a few games as the starting quarterback for the team, he was later replaced by quarterback Eli Manning. After the end of a year with the Giants, Warner became a free agent.

In 2005, Warner joined the Arizona Cardinals, thus proving all retirement rumors wrong. He started in only about half of the team’s matches in his first 3 seasons with them, due to injuries and the team’s interest in quarterback Matt Leinart. In 2008, Warner started in all 16 of the team’s matches. He also threw over 4,000 yards for the first time since 2001.

Warner was soon named to the Pro Bowl, his career’s fourth. The Cardinals lost a close game against the Pittsburgh Steelers in Super Bowl XLIII (2009). Following the 2009 season, the Cardinals got back to the play-offs but were eliminated in the divisional round, after being defeated by the New Orleans Saints.

Warner is considered one of the most talented undrafted players in the NFL. Throughout his illustrious career, he won the NFL MVP twice (1999 and 2001), was made part of the First-Team All-Pro twice (1999 and 2001), and was included in the Pro Bowl 4 times (1999, 2000, 2001, and 2008).

He led the league’s touchdown table twice (1999 and 2001). He also topped the completion percentage thrice (1999, 2000, and 2001), became the league’s leader in passer rating twice (1999 and 2001), and led the passing yards table in 2001.

In 2008, he received the Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year honor. He was also named to the Arena Football Hall of Fame in May 2010, before the league was shut down in 2019. In 2017, Warner was named to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Warner also became the first undrafted player to become both NFL MVP and Super Bowl MVP. He is also the first quarterback to score a Super Bowl win in his first season as his team’s primary starter and the first undrafted quarterback who led his team to a Super Bowl win.

In 2010, Warner began his post-retirement broadcasting career as an NFL Network analyst. He has since been a regular on NFL Total Access and on the pre-game show, Thursday Night Kickoff Presented by Sears.

Warner has also been an analyst for their 2010 coverage of the Arena Football League play-offs. In August 2010, he joined Fox Sports as a color analyst on their NFL coverage for the 2010 season.

In 2014, he joined Westwood One radio’s Monday Night Football as a substitute analyst. In 2018, he graduated to a full-time radio analyst.

He has also made guest appearances on various TV projects, such as The Biggest Loser (2009) and The Suite Life on Deck (2010). He has appeared on The Jay Leno Show (2010) and participated in the dance reality show Dancing with the Stars (2010), paired with Anna Trebunskaya in the latter. In 2013, he hosted the reality show The Moment.

Warner has also devoted time to the First Things First Foundation, which focuses on improving lives by promoting Christian values. In December 2010, Warner signed a multi-year endorsement deal with Nutrilite, which sells dietary supplements and vitamins. Warner has also contributed an undisclosed sum to the Elite Football League of India, part of which will be used to fund donation of footballs to underprivileged children in India.

On October 11, 1997, Warner married Brenda Carney Meoni at the St. John American Lutheran Church. Meoni has previously worked as a US Marine Corps corporal.

The couple have 5 children: their sons Kade (born in 1998) and Elijah (born in 2003) and their daughters Jada (born in 2001), Sierra (born on December 19, 2005), and Sienna (born on December 19, 2005).

Warner also officially adopted Brenda’s 2 children from her previous marriage: her son Zachary (born in 1989) and her daughter Jesse (born in 1992). Zachary is blind and brain-damaged since Meoni’s former husband accidentally dropped him as an infant. Following the incident, Meoni took a voluntary hardship discharge from the Marine Corps in 1990.