Kurt Warner

What failed

He did not start at university until his fifth year. He went undrafted in 1994, was signed by Green Bay and cut in training camp. He took a night job stocking shelves at a supermarket in Cedar Falls for five dollars fifty an hour. He spent three years in Arena Football and lost the championship game twice. He missed a workout with the Chicago Bears three times — a wedding, a honeymoon, and finally an insect bite in Jamaica that swelled his throwing elbow — and never heard from them again. When an NFL team did sign him they sent him to play in Europe, and he then spent fourteen of the next sixteen games as an inactive third-string quarterback.

What happened next

The starter tore a knee ligament in a preseason game in August 1999. Warner threw for 4,353 yards and 41 touchdowns that season, was named the league's most valuable player, and threw for a record 414 yards in the Super Bowl, where he was named most valuable player again.

The point

The supermarket detail is real — the store, the wage, the night shift, all documented. What the chain-email version adds is a sentimental meeting that never happened. The true version is better: he was twenty-three, out of the sport, and telling anyone who would listen that he would be a starting quarterback one day.