Former Arizona Cardinals quarterback Kurt Warner is a man of three words: faith, family and football. All three work together to help shape Warner into the husband, father and coach he is today.
At the base is Kurt's faith. While some shy away from talking about their faith, Warner encourages it. Why? Because you can't tell his story without it.
"We all want to win out here. We are all competitive, there's no question," Warner said. "But there are things that are bigger than that; things more important than that."
In sports and in life, so much is made of the result we sometimes forget how the journey started. For Kurt Warner, it's the opposite.
"I think so often in life, we lose perspective of why we're where we are at, and what our true goals are. When you have success like I was fortunate enough to have, I think it's easy to get caught up in the success," he said. "My faith really gives me perspective on how to be a dad, what's most important and then I'm trying to use the game of football to share those same lessons."
The main lessons are self taught. Throughout Warner's entire football career people, fans and even some coaches have questioned the amount of time the Super Bowl champ put into his faith. But it was never about them.
"A lot of time when people hear me share my faith they think, 'he's trying to push his faith on me.' A lot of time when I'm signing autographs, I sign a (Bible) verse on it," Warner said. "Everybody thinks I'm signing that verse so somebody will take that ball home and look it up in their Bible, but I write those verses as reminders to me. In every situation -- good or bad -- I acknowledge why I'm here, what my purpose is and I don't lose sight of that."
Warner never has. He didn't during his 12 seasons in the NFL or when he's at home raising seven kids. His newest journey is being a high school football coach at Desert Mountain in Scottsdale. The new job presents a lot of new challenges, but Warner has faith.
"You lose a Super Bowl and it's not the end of the world. You can let that go because life is about experiences. Even if it looks like a loss, oftentimes, God can teach us things in those moments," Warner said. "That's always been who I've tried to be as a player, and now it's who I want to be as a dad. It extends on as to who I want to be and the example I want to set as a coach."
