Quarterback discovers what’s really worth struggling for

"First things first," said St. Louis Rams quarterback Kurt Warner as he accepted the trophy as Most Valuable Player of Super Bowl XXXIV at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta. “I’ve got to thank my Lord and Savior up above – thank You, Jesus!”

Warner had reason for gratitude, as the new biopic American Underdog aptly illustrates. Emerging as a one- year starter for unheralded Northern Iowa University, Warner was overlooked in the 1994 NFL draft and failed to latch on anywhere as a free agent. He worked at a grocery store and reluctantly joined a local team in the high-energy indoor Arena Football League.

It was around then that Warner – with the help of his future wife, Brenda,
and her son with disabilities — experienced a gradual embrace of Christian faith. With fresh priorities and purpose, he caught the Rams’ eye, made the roster, and soon assumed a starting role and led his team to a Super Bowl championship. The film ends there, but Warner would go on to a second Super Bowl several years later with the Arizona Cardinals and eventual induction into the NFL Hall of Fame.

Whereas success on the field once meant everything to him, Warner came to realize that football “just happens to be what I do,” he explained in an interview. “I want to be defined by what I believe in, by who I am.”

American Underdog is a faith-based film at heart, but there’s less “faith talk” than one might expect. The film fails to address, for example, the moral contradiction of Kurt and Brenda’s premarital cohabitation; in real life, after Kurt’s conversion, he insisted they refrain from sexual relations until marriage. Including that conversation in the film would have added a powerful moral witness. 

It’s a “feelgood-football-movie- slash-love-story” that takes some liberties with the real story for the sake of drama and efficiency. But its central theme — about a man who ultimately finds happiness and success once he discovers the values worth struggling for — is what takes this film across the goal line.

GERALD KORSON is a Legatus magazine editorial consultant and staff writer.