A dozen great years

WHEN I FIRST HEARD of Kurt Warner, he was a first-year starter for the St. Louis Rams and the Greatest Show on Turf. The Rams, who had recently been a down-and-out franchise (and are back there now) threw the ball all over the yard. They won a Super Bowl with Warner, and it appeared that Warner was a product of the offense built by coordinator (later head coach) Mike Martz.

A few years later, Warner wound up with another struggling franchise, the Arizona Cardinals, and Warner took them to a Super Bowl, too. And Martz, the former whiz-kid coach, was nowhere to be seen.

Along the way, Warner's come off as a great quarterback, a fine man and a terrific father. He's active in the community through his charitable organizations, and his humility makes him special.

Warner retired the other day after a 12-year career, and it's obvious now that Warner was the reason the Rams were great. The NY Times did a nice story about Warner and his retirement. Warner said he's as excited about the next 12 years as he was about the past dozen years; it'll be interesting to see what he'll do.

Contact: I can be reached at tgilli52@gmail.com or nc3022@yahoo.com. Also, my Twitter handle is EDITORatWORK.

More blog entries by Tom Gillispie

• Resume for a writer and editor

• An editor's views on powerful writing

• Advice for be and would-be novelists

• Links to TG's stories online

• Favorite quotes

• What I do when I'm editing

Anecdotes by Tom Gillispie

• Wipeout at Death Valley

• Days with rainbows

• A desperate writer working in the dark

• Yer outta there!

EDITOR@WORK blog entries

• You really DO need an editor

• Reminders for would-be novelists

• What I do when I'm editing

• What I charge (it's a deal) and what I edit

• Slogging through the Internet

• J-school: More eyes on your stories

• J-school: Go out and learn

• Rookie mistakes for magazine writers

Entries from The Dog Blog

• Katie cried

• Growl and pull

• 12 years with my dog Lady

• ... said the spider to ...

• The Dog Diary (2014)

• YIP! YIP! The stereo-sound huskies

• What Lady and Michael Jackson had in common

Blog entries from The Auto Racing Journal

• Angel in Black: Remembering Dale Earnhardt Sr.

(a book of great stories about the Intimidator)

• Then Junior Said to Jeff...

(the book of great NASCAR stories)

• My best day as a sports writer

• Jeff Gordon's milk toast to Dale Earnhardt

• Wayne Auton: A life in racing