NEWS FEATURE: Super Bowl Champs Share Their Faith Stories

c. 2000 Religion News Service ST. LOUIS, Mo. _ No one could have imagined Kurt Warner’s transition from stock boy at an Iowa grocery store to quarterback for the Super Bowl championship winning St. Louis Rams. But Warner told a crowd of 25,000 at the Trans World Dome in St. Louis that during all those […]

c. 2000 Religion News Service

ST. LOUIS, Mo. _ No one could have imagined Kurt Warner’s transition from stock boy at an Iowa grocery store to quarterback for the Super Bowl championship winning St. Louis Rams.

But Warner told a crowd of 25,000 at the Trans World Dome in St. Louis that during all those years he wondered if he’d ever make it, God was holding him out for St. Louis.


Not, the quarterback said, because St. Louis needed help winning the Super Bowl, but because St. Louis needed a champion like him to proclaim the gospel.

“If you give your life to Jesus Christ, he’s going to put you in the right place at the right time to touch lives,” Warner said. And that, he added, is what he wants to do.

Warner and three other members of the Rams team took turns telling their triumphant tales of overcoming adversities like injuries, poverty and doubt to a diverse crowd at an event Warner helped create called Victory 2000,

which took place Saturday night (May 20).

“I had talked briefly with the pastor of my church (about wanting) to go around and speak but it was going to be too difficult to reach every church,

every scenario that people wanted me to come talk to,” Warner said after the event. “I said I would love to put together some different venues, maybe here, maybe in Iowa, you know where I could touch a lot of people at one time.”

Warner’s pastor, the Rev. Jeff Perry of the St. Louis Family Church took it from there.

“I didn’t want to do this,” Perry said. Perry’s nondenominational Christian church is stretched to the limit right now funding home building in Kosovo and food distribution in Africa. In fact Perry left for Zimbabwe the day after Victory 2000. But Perry made some calls and 87 other churches came on board.


In just six weeks they raised hundreds of thousands of dollars, organized 1,500 volunteers, rented the Dome, signed Christian music superstars Kirk Franklin and the Supertones, and built a stage complete with rock concert quality audio system and four large video screens.

“Jesus mandates we go and preach the gospel,” Perry said. And this was too good an opportunity to pass up.

Pope John Paul II and Billy Graham both preached in the Trans World Dome in 1999. John Paul celebrated Mass there in January and Graham held a four-day crusade there in October. Warner joined Graham for one evening of Graham’s crusade.

Like the pope’s visit and Graham’s crusade, Victory 2000 was free and open to the public. Perry estimates the event cost more than $600,000. St. Louis Family Church has raised more than $450,000 so far to offset the cost, The style, size and cost of the event were something people expect from Graham or the Promise Keepers.

Warner even had an emergency appendectomy earlier in the week, but didn’t let that get in the way of Victory 2000. He joked and thanked the crowd for coming out to his “get well party.”

“We put it together in six weeks and it’s just a blessing and the number of people that stood up and asked the Lord into their life. That’s what it’s all about,” Warner said.


His wife, Brenda, who told the crowd about how just eight years ago, when she and her kids were on food stamps and Warner stocked groceries, joined Warner onstage. “We had no money,” she said. They wanted to take the kids to McDonald’s for Happy Meals but couldn’t afford it. She joked now they can afford Happy Meals but have to eat them in the car because so many people mob her husband.

The diverse crowd made up of black and white, city dwellers and suburbanites, young and even some elderly went wild for the triumphant tales. Many stood the entire three hours of the event.

Fifteen-year-old Melissa Schroeder said she made the journey downtown because she wanted to see the athletes. “I think the fact that there are some professional football players willing to share their faith drew most of the people out here,” she said. She said she was particularly moved by tight end Ernie Conwell’s testimony.

Conwell told the crowd he played for three losing seasons with the Rams. Then someone fell on his left knee and tore three of his ligaments. The injury meant he had to sit out most of the 1999-winning season. “It took a lot of strength to get me through,” Conwell said. “But I knew God had a plan for my life.” Conwell went on to make a big catch in the Super Bowl.

Rams’ defensive end Kevin Carter said people always called him an underachiever and in the past two years he’s had more injuries than he’s ever had in his life, not exactly the ingredients for a championship season.

“God allowed me to tap into the greatness of his power,” Carter said. Carter, who leads the National Football League in sacks, played the best football he ever played in the last two injury-filled years.


“What can I do?” Carter wondered. “I’m just a football player. What impact can I have?” He told the crowd the key is to be yielding to God, to be willing to be used and the teens in the crowd stood on their seats and held up homemade signs; some read “Our God is an awesome God.”

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Rams’ Linebacker Mike Jones said he had told his wife he wanted to be a “warrior for Christ.” A tackle by Jones helped secure the Rams’ Super Bowl victory. “As you can see I’m not the biggest, I’m not the fastest, I’m not the strongest person to play in the NFL. And you can say the same thing about one of my heroes, David. David wasn’t the biggest or the strongest, but he had the faith in God to get him through,” Jones said as the crowd screamed their approval.

Steve Brinkley, of St. Charles, Mo., brought his two children because they bugged him to come. The oldest one, 13-year-old Amanda, said she loved the loud rocking music of the Supertones. Dad was less thrilled with the music but really enjoyed hearing from the athletes he’d cheered all season.

Tim Echols of St. Louis was also dragged to the event by his children, Tim Jr., 10 and Nicholas, 5. “Little Tim loves Kirk Franklin CDs. Every other week he wants me to buy him a Kirk Franklin CD. When he found out Franklin was coming here tonight, for the last couple of weeks he’s been bugging me, saying it was getting closer. Everyday he would ask questions about it.” And Franklin didn’t disappoint. He revved up the crowd for nearly an hour before Warner took the stage.

Whether it was the music, the athletes or the lack of a cover charge, thousands came out, to the delight of Kurt Warner. “I mean if you can save one life it makes a difference and we did much more than that tonight. And I just thank the Lord for the opportunity to be a part of it,” Warner said.

DEA END WICAI

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