Kurt Warner retired from the NFL after the 2009 season. His philanthropy, not surprisingly, has never stopped.
So as the former Cardinals quarterback and Hall of Famer spent the week in New Orleans taking part in various events, he spent Friday at a special luncheon honoring a handful of past NFL Walter Payton Man of the Year award winners – all men who have continued to do Man of the Year work even though their playing days have ended.
"It's always an honor to be recognized for the work that you are doing but to me, as we go through this thing and move into the next phase, so many of these moments are simply about sharing with other people the kind of impact they can have," Warner said before leaving for Louisiana. "This is the blessing that we have with this incredible platform. We have a chance to impact people when we are playing, but that the platform extends beyond that."
The luncheon was put on by the NFL and Sport For Impact. SFI was co-founded by former Cardinal Anquan Boldin as a way to educate athletes and their families about the non-profit sector and created in part because so many player foundations, being run by those ill-informed or even greedy, were only getting a small percentage of funds to those the foundations were intending to serve.
Boldin, like Warner, has long been about community involvement and help, dating all the way back to when he entered the league with the Cardinals in 2003.
Aside from Warner and Boldin, who was the league's Man of the Year while playing for the 49ers, the players honored on Friday were the Buccaneers' Derrick Brooks, the Falcons' Warrick Dunn, the Jets' Marty Lyons, and the Eagles' Troy Vincent.
Warner won the Walter Payton Man of the Year award in 2008, in the pre-NFL Honors days of the league. He was presented his trophy on the field at Raymond James Stadium prior to the Cardinals playing the Steelers in the Super Bowl.
He has carried his First Things First foundation through from his days with the Rams early in his career to present time, impacting needy in the Phoenix area, his home state of Iowa, and in St. Louis where he rose to stardom.
The Man of the Year award has been important to every player who wins it, often being called the greatest honor any player can earn. This year's Cardinals MOY, tight end Trey McBride, said his award this season was just the “first step” in what he plans to make a long-time commitment to charity.
That's exactly what Warner and the other players, like Boldin, hope happens. That's why they had Friday's event, to highlight that need.
"To me it's simply more about showing guys that it doesn't have to stop once your career stops," Warner said. "They are celebrating guys that say, 'This is a lifelong work for me. This is something I'm going to embrace, and I'm going to use everything I got from playing the game to have an impact as long as I possibly can.'
"I hope players that are playing now are inspired to keep doing that kind of work after they are done playing."
