Posted on 01/28/2002 8:13:36 PM PST by VinnyTex
townhall.com
Marvin Olasky ( back to story )
January 29, 2002
Kurt Warner, compassionate conservative
When a quarterback is chosen as the Most Valuable Player in the National Football League for the second time in three years, time is money. He can rake in big bucks for appearing in ads, and he can also do his bit for charity by appearing in a United Way commercial.
What he will not be, unless he's unusual, is a compassionate conservative willing to work directly with the poor in offering them challenging, personal and spiritual help. Who has the time? Who needs the aggravation?
Kurt Warner, scheduled to lead the St. Louis Rams into Sunday's Super Bowl, is unusual -- and not because of his on-the-money passes and his in-the-money, seven-year, $46 million contract. He gives big bucks to charities and to his First Things First Foundation; lots of athletes do similar things. But Warner also gives what he has no more of than anyone else: time.
He's given Sunshine Ministries of St. Louis 20 tickets for each home game so that very poor men, women and teens working to turn their lives around have a chance to see him in action. That's good, but not hard for a multimillionaire. What's striking is that he takes the 20 ticket recipients out to dinner on Fridays before the games. Kurt Warner, his wife Barbara and four Warner children sit with their guests around a big table.
Carol Clarkson, Sunshine's program director, says "the guys feel special" to be eating with this year's NFL MVP, "but he's so natural with us that they get comfortable with him. And he remembers the guys. One little guy is a Giants fan, so he and Kurt got into it, joking back and forth about the Giants and the Rams, and it continued for weeks." Warner, 30, also takes his guests with him to services at St. Louis Family Church. Call the ACLU!
Journalists these days always watch for religious hypocrisy. Warner talks frequently about being a Christian, and if he indulged in trash-talking and showboating or even seemed arrogant, St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporters like Bernie Miklasz and Vahe Gregorian would be on the attack. Instead, each this month wrote a glowing piece about Warner. And Clarkson says, "The important thing is that Kurt knows where he came from, and he hasn't forgotten it."
Warner, 30, came from modest religious interest to evangelical enthusiasm. He came from being fancy-free to marrying a woman with two young children from a previous marriage, one of whom is legally blind. He came from modest success as a high-school quarterback and lots of bench-sitting at Northern Iowa University, hardly known as a National Football League feeder school. He came from working at a supermarket for $5.50 per hour when he couldn't get a football job.
In helping the poor, he hasn't forgotten how he helped himself, through constant practice. For Warner, to "love your neighbor as yourself" means pushing him to work hard. When the St. Louis Rams gave him a back-up job in 1998, Warner practiced and practiced, and was ready when their starter fell to injury early in the season. Warner took over and led the team to Super Bowl victory.
The market for talented quarterbacks served him up a big contract, but he's the type of player who would keep going if he were paid $10 an hour. It beats stocking shelves at the market. And that's the secret to compassionate conservatism, as well. It can be helped by what goes on in Washington, but it won't die if nothing positive happens there. People moved by God to act will always find a way to act.
It will be a shame if, because their faith is vigorous, inner-city ministries can't get help that would allow them to do more -- but they'll continue to do all they can. Some people ignore the poor, and others look upon them as incompetents who will always need a dole. The Warners of the world see them as fellow humans, made in God's image and capable of catching a well-thrown pass.
Marvin Olasky is Editor of WORLD magazine, a TownHall.com member group.
Go RAMS!!!!!
Someone tell Marvin that Warners wife's name is Brenda. Kurt adopted her two kids from a previous marriage and they now have two of their own. Her boy has severe brain damage and is legally blind. His natural father dropped him on his head when the boy was an infant. Kurt is one of the good guys. Go Rams.
Kudos to Kurt for taking on those responsibilities, and also for not trading in his wife for a trophy model/actress/whatever chick when he got successful.
This guy has MY vote, for whatever he wants to do! He's a real man!!
No doubt you are trying at some humor here, right?
Whether the Rams succeed or fail, Warner is the winner.
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