CANTON, Ohio _ At their Hall of Fame party Thursday night at a local country club, Brenda Warner talked of the surreal journey that has led to this moment. She jokingly said she was waiting for someone to tap her on the shoulder and tell her and husband Kurt it was time to leave. That they didn't belong.
"We've talked about that for years," Kurt said Friday, laughing. "As we've gone to different places, seriously, I catch myself sometimes saying: 'Did they see us get in here?'
"It is so much like a dream. Like, OK, this doesn't seem like it's real or should be happening."
It isn't a dream. It did happen. And no one will be tapping the Warners on the shoulder Saturday night in Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium telling them to go. That's because Warner is going to a new place _ the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
His improbable ride from obscurity to Super Bowl champion with the St. Louis Rams culminates with Saturday's induction ceremonies, which begin at 6 p.m. (St. Louis time).
"I still don't know how I belong in this whole thing," Warner said. "As I keep telling everybody, I'm not giving it back.
"It's just been such a crazy ride. And I think the craziest thing was how quickly it went from zero to 60. You're living one life and then almost overnight it changes into something else."
But then it went from 60 to zero almost as quickly, when injuries contributed to Warner's mid-career demise. The details are familiar: His release from St. Louis after the 2003 season, his one-year pit stop with the New York Giants, and his early time with Arizona.
But the rise and fall of Kurt Warner was followed by another equally unexpected plot twist when he took the woebegone Cardinals to a Super Bowl.
The rise and fall of Kurt Warner became the rise and fall ... and rise.
It's the stuff of Hollywood, and in fact, Warner reiterated in a Friday media session that the long, arduous process of making a movie on his life story continues.
"We're still working on it," Warner said. "The hardest part has been as they've tried to write the script different ways, is trying to figure out what the story is. Where it starts and where it ends.
"There's been so many crazy turns to it that one person comes in and goes, 'I think it's gotta end with the Super Bowl championship.' And then another person comes and goes, 'But how do we leave out the whole second chapter (Arizona) that's as good as the first one?' And now you have the Hall of Fame."
Yes, now we have the Hall of Fame, and the gold jacket and bust in Canton that go with it.
"I don't think anybody can wrap their mind around where does this story go," Warner said. "And that's why it's been a hard process. But we are continuing to work on it and scripts are being written right now, so I believe somebody can figure it out and at one point hopefully we can inspire people on the big screen."
(Brenda's current favorite to play her husband in the movie is English actor Tom Hardy.)
Given Warner's humble beginnings, the "everyman" aspect of Warner's story is something that he will try to channel during his induction speech. In typical Warner fashion, he has put in tons of time and effort working on what he'll say Saturday night.
"I want to do justice to what I'm trying to do on the stage," he said. "It's important to me. It's not just, hey, go up there and whatever happens _ so what? _ you're in the Hall of Fame.
"This is a moment for me, especially with my journey I think, to really impart on people maybe for the last time that I didn't corner the market on where I'm at.
"I covered a lot of ground (in the speech), and a lot of ground that other people are going to be able to look at and say, 'I'm right there right now. Or Kurt was right there, just like I was.'
"So I want to make sure I use that ground to encourage and inspire other people that you can do it as well. That you can keep going and accomplish and find yourself on the mountaintop."
Secondarily, Warner said he will try to give thanks _ in his own way _ to those who may have helped him and encouraged him along the way. That presumably will include the fans of St. Louis, but the nature of the night means he won't necessarily mirror his comments of Feb. 4 when he was initially voted into the Hall.
He touched the hearts of an entire region's football fans that night, when he said he'll always have St. Louis in his heart, that he would bring the community with him to Canton, and that he was very disappointed the city no longer had an NFL team.
"I'm not necessarily going to address it in my speech," Warner said. "For me, there's just so many people and so many fan bases and so many groups that went into me getting here.
"Hopefully in other opportunities I get a chance. Up to this point I've tried to do that. But I think for me, (Saturday) is more about being inclusive with everybody and letting everybody know, as a whole, their part in this. Not necessarily one person, one group or one team more than another.
But make no mistake, Warner continued: "The fans in St. Louis were instrumental to where I'm at, to where my family is. ... And I hope St. Louis and the community knows how much they meant to us and how much they still mean to us."
