By Golly, Cardinal Fans Check in!!!

[kgoings]

Here is the article...

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articl...oivin0109.html

During his final season at the University of Northern Iowa in 1993, Warner went to a country-music dance bar called Wild E. Coyotes. He spotted Brenda Carney Meoni and asked her to dance. Her immediate reaction?

"Get away. Get away," she thought.

"Here's this cute guy in a bar with an entourage of females, and I'm the last person that makes sense for him to go to," Brenda said. "I'm a divorced woman with two kids, one with special needs. And Kurt's 21. Twenty-one."

They danced, and the next day, Warner was knocking on her door with a rose.

"Again, I'm screaming in my head, 'Go away!' but I opened the door and said, 'C'mon in,' " she said. "My 2 1/2-year-old grabs him by the hand and shows him every radio we own.

"He fell in love with my kids before he fell in love with me. When we'd have a fight and were going to break up, he'd say, 'Well I get the kids.' I'm like, 'But they're my kids!' "

They stuck together, even when it appeared football wasn't in Warner's future. He signed with the Green Bay Packers as a free agent in 1994 but was cut before the season began. He returned to UNI to work as a graduate assistant football coach and spent nights stocking shelves at the local Hy-Vee grocery store. He moved in with Brenda, who was struggling financially and turned to food stamps for a while. They drove a car that died every time it turned left.

He landed with the Arena Football League's Iowa Barnstormers in 1995 and three years later was signed by the St. Louis Rams, who allocated him to the NFL's developmental league in Europe. His backup with the Amsterdam Admirals was Jake Delhomme, now the Panthers' quarterback.

Around this time, Warner began challenging Brenda about her faith. She had become a devout Christian as a 12-year-old after seeing a fundamentalist Christian film called A Distant Thunder (1978). Warner questioned her, suggesting she was picking and choosing her beliefs from the Bible at her convenience. During this exploration, he closely studied the Bible.

"When I did, it was obvious what the truth was," Warner said.

He committed himself to the Bible's message. That's Warner's way, why he has succeeded in football. He studies, commits, believes.

Before they married, he told Brenda they should follow the Bible faithfully, which meant, among other things, no premarital sex.

"I'm like, 'Dude, we've got so many other things to work on. Why that one?' " Brenda, now 41, said, laughing.

They married in 1997. In 1999, he took over as the Rams' quarterback when starter Trent Green was injured. What followed was two Super Bowls, two MVP titles and a legion of Christian followers.