ST. LOUIS — January 30, 2000. It's one of those dates stamped in St. Louisans' brains. If you were of a certain age, you remember exactly where you were, who you were with and what you were feeling when the St. Louis Rams won Super Bowl XXXIV.
Twenty years later, the legacy of that team still remains in St. Louis, even though the franchise might not. And above all, the story of that team's grocery store stock boy turned Super Bowl MVP is still one of the best things we've ever seen in sports.
The script is so ludicrous I'm not sure it'd be believable as an adaptation on the big screen.
Kurt Warner, an unknown second-string quarterback who was bagging groceries in an Iowa Hy-Vee a few years prior is pressed into action because his team's new star gets hurt in the preseason. All Warner does is go on to create one of the most prolific offenses in NFL history en route to a Super Bowl win and MVP Award in his first year.
Come on now. Things like that aren't supposed to happen in real life. But it did, and St. Louis will never forget it, even if the NFL wants to erase football in our town from everyone's memory.
The Kurt Warner story is sports at its best. It's inspiring. It's compelling. It's emotional. Yes, the actual statistics are impressive and all, but it's more about that emotion.
We got to see a guy go from absolute anonymity to starring on the biggest stage in sports in a matter of months. He had struggled through the trials and tribulations, took jobs in the Arena League and NFL Europe and did whatever he had to do to make it on an NFL roster, just for a chance.
One chance was all he needed to become a legend.
After Trent Green went down in the 1999 preseason, Rams head coach Dick Vermeil was about the only person who was still optimistic in the team's chances.
"We will rally around Kurt Warner, and we will play good football," Vermeil famously said.
The Rams not only played good football, they played historic football.
The 'Greatest Show on Turf' Rams were unlike anything the NFL had seen before. Mike Martz's high-flying offense left opposing defenses dizzy and eating the Rams' dust.
Running back Marshall Faulk, receivers Isaac Bruce, Torry Holt, Az-Zahir Hakim and Ricky Proehl and a staunch offensive line lit up scoreboards and created an NFL experience unlike any other. It was an experience that had 'The Dome' in downtown St. Louis rocking louder than any other venue in football.
It's a time in St. Louis sports we all wish we could re-live. Unfortunately, Stan Kroenke and the NFL decided to trash our town and extinguish any hope of that dream. The Rams might be gone, but our memories and Warner's Super Bowl legacy remains. And that can never be taken away.
St. Louis was the home of one of the most unbelievable stories in the history of sports. It's still the home of the only Super Bowl title in Rams franchise history.
In St. Louis, the only guy who can even come close to matching Warner's story is Jordan Binnington, who came out of nowhere to lead the Blues to their first Stanley Cup in 2019.
But we saw Warner do it first and do it at a level that shouldn't have been possible. Twenty years later, his legacy still lives on. Because St. Louis will never stop talking about January 30, 2000.