Kurt Warner: ‘It’s Never Too Late to Realize Your Dream’

Do you feel like your dreams have passed you by? Do you ever feel like it’s too late? Football legend Kurt Warner says it’s never too late and he’s back on television to prove it with a new reality show called The Moment.

The program is about giving people who thought their dream had passed them by a second chance. It’s a message the football star says hits very close to home.

Warner is taking nine hopefuls on the adventure of a lifetime. The journey involves giving each contender a second chance to fulfill their biggest dream.

“I’m here to give you a second chance to become a professional photographer for Sports Illustrated!” Warner says in the The Moment.

“No way!” Tracie Marcum, one of the nine hopefuls, exclaims with eyes as big as saucers.

The dreams are as diverse as the people: from a professional sport photographer, to a symphony conductor and a race car driver. Nine people will be put to the test to see if they have what it takes—and it won’t be easy.

“Just got to toughen up and do it!” The sports photographer wannabe cries.

“This is my biggest fear,” another hopeful exclaims.

Kurt Warner’s Testimony
Warner knows all about second chances. He went from stocking grocery store shelves in Iowa to leading the St. Louis Rams to a Super Bowl victory just a few short years later.

In the mid-90s Warner went to camp with the Green Bay Packers, confident his NFL career was about to take off. But just five weeks later he was cut. He tried other teams, even other leagues.

“Basically everybody said, ‘We’re not interested,'” Warner recalled. “I didn’t want to give up on my dream, but I knew I had to take a job. I had to pay some bills, so I took a job at a grocery store.

“So I’m working all night long and when I got off, I might get a couple hours of sleep, go work out and make sure I’m still chasing my dream,” he continued. “Then, my future wife, Brenda, who had two kids, I would help take care of those kids while she went to nursing school.”

While making just $5.50 an hour in that grocery store, Warner got the opportunity to play Arena Football in Iowa.

“So I did that for three years, the whole time trying to find a way to open a door to get back into the NFL,” Warner recalled.  “I was 27 years old and I still had the dream, but everyone around me was saying, ‘At some point, you have to give this up. At some point you have to realize they don’t give 27-year-old individuals a chance to play in the NFL. It just doesn’t happen, especially at the quarterback position.'”  

But apparently Coach Dick Vermeil of the St. Louis Rams didn’t agree and gave Warner a second chance at his dream of playing in the NFL.

“He said there was something different about me, something he noticed that he wanted to give me a chance,” Warner continued. “So here I am, 27 years old, I’m a rookie in the National Football League and I guess, as they say, the rest is history.”

Warner would go on to be one of the best undrafted players of all time, following a 12-year career that’s regarded as one of the greatest stories in NFL history.

“When you’re going through it, you’re like, ‘Why can’t I be the No. 1 draft pick?  Why can’t I get my opportunity? Why can’t everything play out like I had always hoped it would?'” he remembered. “But now, after things have played out and I’ve seen how God has used this story, I wouldn’t change a thing.”

Warner says the fact that he was blessed to get a second chance makes him the perfect host for The Moment.

“Everybody needs someone to step in and give them a chance to chase their dream, or in some cases, a second chance because life takes them in a different direction,” he said.

God of Second Chances
Warner says the whole theme of “second chances” is something those who serve a God of second chances can identify with.

“When I pick up the Bible, that’s everybody’s story in the Bible,” Warner said. “It’s God taking people that everybody says, ‘No way, can’t happen, no chance’ and doing amazing things with them.”

That’s the hope of each person featured in The Moment. Each one will have a chance to train with an expert mentor in his or her “dream career,” prepare for an interview and hopefully, land the job of a lifetime.

“Kurt, what do you hope people will take away from The Moment?” CBN News’s Wendy Griffith asked Warner.

“I hope and pray that the show is that knock on everybody’s door,” he replied. “That as they watch that show, their eyes are opened to what life could be and no longer are they going to allow things to hold them back—that they’re truly going to chase after it, whatever it is they want in life.”

The Moment debuts Thursday at 10 p.m. ET on the USA Network. For more show information, check out their website.

Click below to watch Warner talk about his new show.