SportsPants

Professional football lost a role model and a public relations goldmine on Friday as Kurt Warner retired following a crazy 12-year career.

Most of you know Warner’s NFL story: He got cut from the Packers early in his career and ended up stocking grocery shelves in Iowa. He then joined the Arena Football League and set the field on fire.

The Rams invited him to camp for a backup role in 1999 when starter Trent Green went down in the pre-season with a torn-up knee. Warner was promoted to starter and blew the league apart. He won the league MVP as well as a Super Bowl title and was featured on one of my favorite Sports Illustrated covers that has a picture of Warner in the middle of that 1999 season with the caption, “Who is this guy?” That’s what we were all saying.

His amazing Rams career lasted a few years and then, BOOM, it ended. He wallowed away with the Giants.

Once everyone had written him off as a moment in time, Warner proved to be ageless as he came to Arizona and led that awful franchise to the Super Bowl. He had left the valley and returned to the summit.

Speaking of summits, Warner holds a bevy NFL records including the top three most passing yards in a Super Bowl (and he was only in three Super Bowls), the highest career completion percentage in the playoffs, and the most career touchdowns in a post-season.

He’s a big time player, for sure.

The career of Warner is amazing enough, but it’s his personal life that astounds me. This is a guy that married a woman who was a former Marine with two children and was living on food stamps and had just lost her parents when a tornado destroyed their home.

Then Warner hit it big and became a millionaire. We’ve seen that story before. An unknown marries a sweetheart for stability. Then he hits it big and suddenly his world opens up and that’s followed by affairs and divorce. It happens so often we think of it as normal for celebrities.

Warner takes the road less traveled by being a devoted husband to the wife he married BEFORE he was famous and to her kids from another man whom Kurt officially adopted. He also has five children with his wife. It’s nothing new to see an athlete with a bunch of children, but Warner actually takes care of his.

Much like LaDanian Tomlinson, Warner devotes his free time to helping the needy whether it is single parents or disabled children. His efforts have won him awards such as the Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year, the Muhammad Ali Leadership Award, and the Most Caring Athlete Award in 2009.

Warner is not without controversy. His religious views turn some people off and he spoke out against stem cell research. Yet, he’s never backed down from whom he is and he speaks matter-of-factly about his faith. He doesn’t shame others; he simply doesn’t hide his beliefs.

It’s a sports world full of cynics, self-absorbed athletes, and the win at all costs mentality, Warner proved you could have success along with a soul. He’s truly one of the good guys.

Read more of Brad Seal at the original "SportsPants" blog.