By GARY MYERS
Daily News Sports Writer

Last Wednesday, Zachary Warner and his seven-year-old sister Jesse
wore their dad's No. 13 Rams football jersey to school in suburban St.
Louis.

Zachary is a fifth-grader and he is proud of his dad, not because he is Kurt
Warner, the starting quarterback for the Rams, but because he is just dad,
the guy who helps him do his homework and believes in him.

Kurt Warner is the No. 2-ranked passer in the NFL, the quarterback of an
udefeated team and, off the early returns, one of the most compelling NFL
success stories of the decade. Warner appreciates that. How could he not?
In many ways, Warner's story is an odyssey, with stops through football's
small-town outposts in the Midwest and its cosmopolitan training grounds in
Europe and maybe most importantly, a country and western dance in Iowa.

It was there that Warner met his wife Brenda and began the real journey, the
one in which the day-to-day triumphs of life far outshine the
accomplishments
on the field.

Warner laughs at the inevitable question he gets from strangers — Kurt
who? — because he knows the answer. His professional world tour — from
the Iowa Barnstormers of the Arena Football League to the Amsterdam
Admirals of NFL Europe — pales in comparison to his personal pilgrimage.
"We've been through a lot of things," Warner says. "We've had some good
times and some bad times. We realize what is important in life."
Warner knows that the bumps in the road from Des Moines to St. Louis are
nothing compared to the daily struggles of Zachary, his 10-year old adopted
son. Or the anguish his wife Brenda endured when doctors told her that a
tragic accident had left her four-month-old son not only legally blind but
with
brain damage.

Warner will never forget the look on his wife's face when she learned three
years ago that her parents had been killed — victims of a tornado that swept
through their home in Arkansas.

"The things that are important are not throwing a bunch of touchdown
passes," Warner says. "It's not where we hang our hat. We hang our hat on
family and faith. Whether I continue to thrive on the football field, it's
not
what shapes who I am and who the family is. We are already the people we
are and who we want to be."

If Warner's success proves to be fleeting, in other words, there's little
chance
he won't be able to handle it.

Kurt Warner was a football player at Northern Iowa in 1992 when he met
his future wife at a country and western dance in Cedar Falls. She was a
divorced mother of two, living with her parents, and trying to deal with her
son's injuries.

She told Warner that she had two children and that if he didn't want to see
her again, she would understand.

"He showed up the next morning with a rose and wanted to meet the kids,"
she says. "He fell in love with them before he fell in love with me. The
kids
just adore him."

They will celebrate their second anniversary on Oct. 11. "To me," Warner
says, "the kids were just a bonus. I was blessed by three people instead of
just one."

The morning he brought her the rose, Brenda told him about Zachary. She
told him that as her husband was taking him out of the bathtub, the
four-month-old baby slipped out of his hands and hit the back of his head on
the side of the tub.

"It was totally an accident," she says. "It was an awful, awful moment."

"Initially they told Brenda he would be lucky to live," Warner says. "They
said he would probably never sit up and that he definitely would not walk."

At the time, she says she thought, "It's up to God what becomes of him, not
what the doctors tell me."

Zachary is now in a regular elementary school and gets special assistance
with his academics. He talks fine, he walks, he is learning to read.

"He's able to do just about anything he needs to do," Warner says.
"Everything might take a little bit longer or is more cumbersome than for
other kids his age. Everything is a struggle for him. But he's an
unbelievable
kid and has come so far in the last few years. If you talk to him and saw
him,
you would never know anything is wrong."

Although he is legally blind, he can see things when they are close to his
face,
so when he attends Rams games, he goes to the child care room for the
players' kids and stands right next to the television. He does have
neurological problems, says Brenda, "and he can't run like a normal boy. He
has certain characteristics that go along with brain damage."

Brenda says the accident took its toll on her first marriage, because, she
adds, her ex-husband had "to deal with his guilt and all the feelings that
went
with it."

Warner adopted her children early in 1998, a few months after he and
Brenda were married. "They are mine," he says. "There's no other way I
would ever look at it. I've been with them a long time. They are my
children."

A year ago they had a son together, Kade. Warner says Zachary is not a big
football fan. "He doesn't care what his dad does," he says. "He cares about
me as an individual."

Because he is blind, says Brenda, Zachary "knows people by their hearts."

Last summer, Zachary attended Camp Barnabas in southern Missouri a
camp for kids with special needs that also allows the campers' siblings to
attend. Each week is designated for children with a specific disability.

The Warners were so impressed with the camp that they have decided to
donate money to help it grow and will host charity events to raise funds for
the camp. Brenda also worked there as a volunteer nurse.

"He's one of the most special children I ever met," Warner says. "He's a
child
who loves you for the way you love him. Whether I throw five touchdowns
or five interceptions, it doesn't matter. He's got a smile on his face and
is
ready to wrestle with dad no matter what. That's what life is all about."

One night in 1996, after Brenda's parents had moved to Mountain View,
Ark., they were planning to attend their new church to be baptized. But her
mother had a headache and they decided to stay home. A tornado hit the
town and Brenda's parents house was ripped apart. Their bodies were found
in the next yard. The people who made it to church that night were safe.

"It affects the rest of my life," Brenda Warner says. "Even Kurt's success
is
not as good as it could be because they are not here to share it. It's so
much
for us. It's hard to see your son turning a year old and they will never see
him. People think we've got it made, but they don't know where we've been.

"The Lord tells me he won't give me more than I can handle," she adds. "But
he's really pushing it."

The Warners are deeply religious and say their faith and their family helped
them get through the tough times. "You fight it every day, especially when
you have parents that are so close to you," says Warner. "It's one of those
things we continue to struggle with. We go day by day. She is a strong
wman and has been through a lot."

Warner didn't start at Northern Iowa until his senior season and he was not
taken in the NFL draft. He signed as a free agent with the Packers, but
considering that Green Bay's three quarterbacks were Brett Favre, Mark
Brunell and Ty Detmer, he had no shot to make the team. Mike Holmgren,
then the Packers coach, says he doesn't remember much about Warner that
summer "other than the fact that he was a great young guy.

"He didn't get a whole lot of snaps and probably didn't get much of a chance
with us," Holmgren says. "We looked at him more like your fourth camp
quarterback. I really hadn't heard much about him since then except if I saw
an Arena League game. Unlike the Bill Walsh coaching tree, I can't take any
credit for Kurt Warner."

After the Packers let him go, Warner tried to catch on in NFL Europe but
nobody wanted to sign him. He went back to Iowa to play for the
Barnstormers and became a star.

He threw 183 touchdown passes in three seasons. In 1997, he threw 79. He
once tossed nine in a game. But the most money he ever made in a season
with his incentive-laden contracts was $65,000. Twice, he took the
Barnstormers to the Arena Bowl game. In the offseason, he supplemented
his income with other jobs. He did some counseling with at-risk youth and
visited inner city schools.

But he was not playing on the "big field," as he calls it. In the Arena
League,
it's 8-on-8 on a 50-yard field that is about half the width of the NFL's.
The
game is played at a fast pace and 90% of the calls are pass plays.

"Everybody says it's like playing in a little cracker box," he says.

Despite his prolific numbers and the shortage of quarterbacks in the NFL, no
team tried to sign him. He had some tryouts, but nothing panned out.

"I wasn't getting any respect at all," he says.

But before the '98 NFL Europe season began, Warner got a call from
Amsterdam coach Al Lugenbill, who arranged for the Rams to give Warner
a tryout. "There are some good quarterbacks in the Arena League,"
Lugenbill says.

Warner thought the tryout was so bad that the team wouldn't be interested in
him. Shortly after, he packed up and headed to Jamaica for his honeymoon.

He was supposed to work out for the Bears when he came back, but while
he was in Jamaica he was bitten on his right elbow, possibly by a scorpion
or
centipede. He could barely move his elbow, was on antibiotics for a month
and never worked out for the Bears. But the Rams had liked what they saw,
signed him and allocated him to Amsterdam, where he led NFL Europe in
yards, touchdowns, completions and attempts.

Still, he barely made the Rams in 1998 as the third string quarterback,
beating out Will Furrer. He was inactive for the first 14 games before
finally
throwing the first 11 passes of his NFL career in the Rams final game of the
season in San Francisco.

St. Louis signed free agent Trent Green to a $16.5 million contract in
February, and with the departures of Tony Banks and Steve Bono, the
backup job belonged to Warner.

Then Green suffered a season-ending knee injury in the third preseason game
and suddenly, two years out of the Arena League, Warner was the Rams
starter.

"It's been fun," he says. "It's always been something I believed was going
to
happen." Kurt Who?

"I think it's funny," he says. "I know who I am. I thought I belonged in the
NFL for a long time. People don't know much about me now. It's not a fluke
thing. I think it's funny to hear people putting all my success into two
weeks.
I know it's been in me for a long time."

But his success came in the Arena League and how can you not be skeptical
about that? "It's still playing football," he says. "It's throwing the
football and
making plays. That's what it's all about."

In the season opener against Baltimore, Warner threw for 316 yards and
three touchdowns and coach Dick Vermeil was so happy for Warner, he got
teary-eyed in the post-game press conference. Last week against the NFC
champion Falcons, he threw for 275 yards and three more touchdowns. He
also ran for a score.

"I'd be a liar to say I thought he'd be the second leading passer in the NFL
after two starts," Vermeil says.

Before the opener, however, Vermeil predicted, "Kurt is going to play better
than any of the No. 1 draft picks at quarterback this year."

He is paid a lot less, too. He's making the second year minimum of
$250,000 and, according to his agent, Mark Bartelstein, does not have any
incentives based on starts. But if he continues to play well, he will make
his
money, despite his relative anonymity.

"I don't know a thing about him," Bucs personnel director Jerry Angelo
admits. "Northern Iowa, Arena League, World League — I don't know
him."

After Warner played well in Amsterdam, teams called the Rams to find out if
they were going to keep him. "We had plans for him," Rams VP of personnel
Charley Armey says.

Armey's scouting report on Warner: accurate, poised, handles pressure,
smart, pretty good arm, adequate mobility. And Armey wasn't scared off by
the Arena League background because he felt he knew enough about
Warner.

"Football players are where you find them. Every once in a while a guy slips
through the cracks," Armey says. "Things fell into place for us. I look for
this
kid to do well. He's not doing any better than I thought he would do."

And he's won over his teammates in a big way. "Kurt Warner is Larry Bird,"
defensive tackle DeMarco Farr says. "He has the Larry Bird look. We lost
Trent Green and they told him, 'You're our guy for the season.' There was no
batting of an eye. Nothing but calm. He took the ball, warmed up and started
playing. The only guys that were shocked and scared about Kurt playing
were people outside this lockerroom. We knew what he could do."

It is only two games. But considering how far Warner has come and how
he's persevered, he has already made his point. He can play in this league.

"What a great story that is," Holmgren says.

After his first start, a 27-10 win over the Ravens, Warner went over to the
stands where his wife was sitting and presented her with the game ball.
Sounds almost like the end to a tear-jerking movie.

But for Kurt Warner, and his family, it's just the beginning.
 

BERNIE MIKLASZ: The old Barnstormer takes the NFL by storm
By Bernie Miklasz
Post-Dispatch Sports Columnist
 
 

CINCINNATI -- OK, it's time to tell the tall tale to the rest of the nation.

One day, a mysterious figure named Kurt Warner stepped out of a tall Iowa cornfield and appeared in the Rams huddle to provide instant offense, instant mythology. He'd be the lead character in a football version of "Field of Dreams."

It wasn't quite like that. Warner held a clipboard for three years at Northern Iowa. In 1994, he was cut from Green Bay's camp long before the first bratwurst was tossed on the tailgate-party grill. He survived  rug burns and bad mascots for three seasons with the Iowa Barnstormers in the Arena Football League. And before coming to St. Louis to ride the bench behind Tony Banks and Steve Bono, he played an obscure  season of football on the soccer fields of Europe.

After Warner led the Amsterdam Admirals to a dramatic victory, the local newspaper exclaimed, "Het verschil was vooral die ene man, quarterback Kurt Warner, bijgenaamd Houdini."

Houdini?

You bet.

 In three NFL starts, Warner has completed 68.8 percent of his passes for 894 yards and nine touchdowns, with only two interceptions. His quarterback rating is a ridiculous 125.0. He's accurate on short passes, long passes, touch passes, bullet passes, passes thrown to the side, passes feathered down the middle and passes made at his wife, Brenda, who always gets the first postgame hug.

 Sunday at Cinergy Field, Warner had synergy with his receivers and his universe, and what we saw were three quarters of near perfection: 17 of 21 passing, a mere 81 percent, for 310 yards and three TDs. With the Rams leading the toothless Bengals 35-3, coach Dick Vermeil wisely rested Warner in the fourth quarter. That was the only thing that cooled him off.

 Isaac Bruce went deep, Torry Holt went to the races and Az-Zahir Hakim went crazy. The final score was 38-10. The Rams (3-0) remained unbeaten. Warner didn't.

The blitzing Bengals came at him hard and tried to knock him out of this daydream-believer state of mind. At times, Warner got bounced around like a human pinball, like when his arena-league Iowa Barstormers were having wild shootouts with the Orlando Predators.

Warner picked himself up and picked the Bengals apart. He handled the blitz, he scooted out of danger, he found the holes in Cincinnati's coverage and he made the usual connections with "The Warner Brothers." The Bengals tried to pinch Warner to see if he was for real, and he reacted by shooting flames through their defense.

 "We believe in Kurt. We've believed in him from the day he stepped in," offensive tackle Orlando Pace said. "Kurt showed another aspect of his game today, getting out of the pocket and throwing the ball. We're happy to see that. He can do so many things really well. He makes plays."

Warner is an interesting mix of cockiness and humility. He'll praise the Lord, praise his receivers, praise his line and then praise himself. He doesn't buy into the fairy-tale aspect of his dramatic emergence as the quarterback who saved a football season in St. Louis after Trent Green went down with a mangled knee.

Vermeil made a true confession: He didn't expect Warner to be so poised - so soon, so consistently. He  didn't expect Warner to be Neil Lomax throwing to Roy Green, Jim Hart throwing to Mel Gray, Ron Jaworski throwing to Harold Carmichael.

"No way," Vermeil said. "At the end of the fourth quarter, I'm standing next to Kurt, and we were talking  about some conversations we've had behind closed doors. And I said: 'You know, I'd love to tell you that I knew you would be this good this early. You knew I felt you'd be good by midseason, but I didn't anticipate it this quickly.' "

 After all this barnstorming and bench sitting, did Warner expect to take control of an NFL offense and pick  up where John Elway left off?

  "Well, yes, I did," he said. "I didn't expect there to be a drop-off when I went in there after Trent got hurt. It's the mentality that I have. I feel when I go out there, I can be successful, and I can win. It's not just me out there. We've got a great group around me, but I have confidence in myself. Obviously, that's not
 lacking at all."

 The first week, when he shook off some jitters and led the Rams to a win over Baltimore, Warner was a cute little story. After the second game, when he stuck darts into the Atlanta defense, Warner was a
 novelty. Now that he has done it three times in a row, he's at least a national curiosity.

 "People can take me seriously or not take me seriously," Warner said. "It doesn't matter. We're going to  attack people the same way. I thought I was someone to be taken seriously from day one. But you know now they're going to have to take us all seriously. They can't look past the Rams anymore as an easy win."

Warner is a religious man, and he'll use faith to keep his head squared. Besides, with the San Francisco 49ers coming to town, this is a good time to have friends in high places.

 "I just have to give praise to the Lord up above," Warner said. "He's using me in a special way. As we've seen before, He takes people that nobody expects to do anything, and He uses them for big things."

 We're not sure if the Lord is using Warner to win football games for the Rams. But if this 3-0 record is a  miracle, we'll take it.