LINCOLN, Neb. — Kurt Warner was dumbfounded.
“Extremely surprised,” he said of the recruiting ordeal that his son Kade faced three years ago after setting the Arizona career record for receptions in 11-man high school football.
Kade did not receive a single scholarship offer.
“There were none,” Kurt said, “zero, for a guy that was productive and made play after play after play. I think that’s the most disappointing part of the process to me, having played the game as long as I have, is that people spend too much time looking at the tangibles.
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“And they miss the intangibles.”
At the center of this father-son story about pride and motivation and perseverance sits a bit of beautiful irony. The recruiting community in college football largely overlooked Kade despite knowing Kurt’s own path, which remains unforgettably etched in NFL lore.
Kade, perhaps predictably, rose to prominence last season in his first opportunity as a redshirt freshman walk-on wide receiver at Nebraska. Elevated from the third team to the starting unit ahead of Week 5 under new coach Scott Frost, Kade started seven of the final nine games and caught 17 passes.
His ascension coincided with the Huskers’ strong second half of the season. And as No. 24 Nebraska pushes toward its Aug. 31 opener against South Alabama, Kade, a 6-1, 210-pound sophomore, fits again as an important piece.
The lesson from this in the wake of Kurt’s storybook career? Kade’s climb in Lincoln is probably not a coincidence. And underestimate him at your own risk of feeling foolish.
Nebraska signed a trio of four-star receivers under ex-coach Mike Riley in 2017.
There was Keyshawn Johnson Jr., who left the school in the summer before his freshman season. The Huskers also inked Jaevon McQuitty, the No. 1-rated prospect out of Missouri in that class, according to ESPN, who remains in line to contribute at Nebraska but has yet to record a reception in two years.
And it nabbed Tyjon Lindsey, a top-50 recruit nationally who flipped to the Huskers from Ohio State. News of his transfer from Nebraska surfaced three days after Kade’s first start against Purdue in late September. Lindsey landed at Oregon State.
Kade, while at Scottsdale Desert Mountain High, received no ranking as a prospect by Rivals.com. ESPN and 247 Sports awarded him two stars. The 247 Composite placed Kade as the 98th-best prospect in Arizona despite his 241 career receptions, the final two 1,000-yard seasons with his dad — the famous former quarterback and two-time NFL MVP — as offensive coordinator.
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“People like to say I’m slow,” Kade said. “That’s obviously a reason I didn’t get recruited. But it’s in the past now. I’m happy I’m here. Walk on or scholarship, it doesn’t matter to me as long as I’ve got a chance to play.”
The Huskers noticed Kade late in the recruiting process when then-offensive coordinator Danny Langsdorf visited Phoenix to evaluate 2019 prospect Spencer Rattler, an elite quarterback who eventually signed with Oklahoma. Kade, through a friend of his dad’s, got a job catching balls from Rattler in the workout.
“I know in this world that people get enamored with numbers,” Kurt said. “They get enamored with size, and they think they can teach everything else. I’m a firm believer that, yeah, you can’t teach speed, but you also can’t teach a feel for the game.
“And a guy who has instincts and understands how to play and understands those nuances, I will take that smart guy who does the right thing and makes the play every time over the fastest guy or the tallest guy.”
Kade had an invitation to play at San Diego, a Division I non-scholarship program, and opportunities to walk on at Arizona State, Iowa and UCLA. He got more interested in Nebraska through Blair Tushaus, a defensive graduate assistant under Riley in 2016 and ‘17 and former Arizona tight end who worked at Desert Mountain in 2015, Kade’s junior year.
Kade visited Lincoln in the dead of winter.
“I didn’t see anybody on campus,” he said. “But (Tushaus) took me around. I met some of the coaches. And it was really the walk-on program that drew me in. It’s so illustrious, and I learned the history behind it. I knew I’d have a chance.”
The chance came earlier than anticipated. Kade redshirted while recovering from a hand injury in 2017. Frost replaced Riley, and Kade did not play against Colorado, Troy or Michigan to open last season. He said he figured he would sit again and get a shot to prove himself in 2019.
But the Huskers, who started 0-6, were searching for guys to put team over self. At receiver behind Stanley Morgan and JD Spielman, inconsistency was the norm. So Troy Walters, the offensive coordinator and receivers coach, asked Kade after a 56-10 loss to Michigan if he knew the offense.
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Yes, he told the coach. His practice reps shifted on Monday and Tuesday of that week. By Friday, he was listed as a starter. After the initial conversation with Walters, Kade said, he never had another talk with a Nebraska coach about his spot on the depth chart.
“It was crazy but awesome at the same time,” he said. “It just happened.”
Late in the week, Kade called his parents to share the exciting news. “I think I’m going to play,” he said.
Kade is the oldest of Kurt and Brenda Warner’s five biological children. Kurt adopted two of Brenda’s children from a previous marriage. Their younger son, EJ, plays quarterback at Phoenix Brophy Prep. Kurt coaches him, too.
On Friday nights in the fall last year, the Warners often flew from Phoenix to the site of Nebraska’s game on Saturday. They made it to most by kickoff, including the 42-28 loss in Lincoln to Purdue. Kade made his collegiate debut and caught two passes for 16 yards.
For Kurt, it was something special.
“To watch Kade fight that battle,” Kurt said, “and to earn the opportunity for no other reason than he was the best guy for the job, that, to me, is an unbelievable story. He hasn’t been given anything. We’re extremely proud of the young man that he is, the character that he has, the work ethic, the ability to fight through the frustration.”
That Kade’s frustration over recruiting ended within days of Kurt’s election to the Pro Football Hall of Fame speaks to the harmony at work along their journeys.
Kurt, 48, attended high school in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and said yes to Northern Iowa, the only school to offer him a scholarship. He sat until his senior year, posted big numbers, went undrafted in 1994 and was cut by the Green Bay Packers in training camp.
For many, the story would have ended there. But Kurt’s next steps turned him into an icon. He stocked shelves at Hy-Vee in Cedar Rapids and moved from stardom in the Arena League to Europe and eventually won MVP honors in Super Bowl XXXIV for the 1999 St. Louis Rams in his first season as a starter.
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Kurt played in three Super Bowls over 12 years, retiring with the Arizona Cardinals in 2010.
Kade was born during Kurt’s first NFL season. He remembers nothing, of course, about his dad’s early years.
“I wish I was more involved in football for him,” Kade said. “I wish I had gone to more games and been more excited about his away games and his stats. Right at the end of his career, I started to get like that, where I would compare him to other quarterbacks.”
Kade said he never realized until around the time of Kurt’s retirement “how good he was or what he had accomplished.” Over the past decade, though, Kade has gained an appreciation, he said.
And Kurt’s lengthy climb to the top has impacted Kade in his young career.
“The obstacles he had to face are far greater than the ones I’ve had,” Kade said. “In high school, I started to realize the trials and tribulations he went through — and that mine aren’t that bad. If he could get through it, so can I.”
According to Kade, his dad often draws parallels. If Kade faces a difficult situation, Kurt reminds him that it doesn’t have to be the end of the road. “You can find a different way to go,” Kade said Kurt tells him.
The elder Warner knows from experience.
Kade has dealt with a minor injury this month in preseason camp. He missed practice time. It may impact his readiness for the opener, but Kurt and Brenda plan to get to Lincoln next week. Kurt said they’re looking into private air travel on various weekends because of Kurt’s schedule demands.
He spends Sundays during the season in studio for the NFL Network in Los Angeles. And he’s set to fly to London twice this year for telecasts, likely causing Kurt to miss Nebraska trips to Minnesota and Purdue. He also works Monday Night Football radio broadcasts for Westwood One.
“Life is crazy,” Kurt said, “But our goal this year is to figure out a way to get to as many of his games as possible. When your son’s playing and doing something that he loves, there are only so many opportunities to see him.”
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Sometimes as the Warners leave Phoenix and drive past the Arizona State campus en route to the airport, they call to remind Kade their travel could have been greatly minimized if he chose differently.
“But they’re very excited for me,” Kade said. “They love the trips here.”
Kurt does seem genuinely thrilled.
“As I was telling Kade last year, he’s starting in the Big Ten,” Kurt said. “And he’s playing in the Big House. And he’s playing against Ohio State. I’m just telling him, ‘Do you understand that you’re doing things now that 99 percent of people that ever played this game will never get an opportunity to do?
“ ‘You’re doing things that I never got to do.’ ”
Kurt strives to ensure that Kade, EJ and his three daughters with Brenda appreciate their blessings in life. He said he recognized years ago that he can’t force his story on his kids. He can’t make them consider the hurdles he had to clear in football as they set out to cut their own paths.
“It comes down to them having to decide for themselves in different moments what they want to be,” Kurt said, “who they want to be, how they want to be remembered, what’s most important to them. Yeah, we share those stories. And we try to encourage them. But at the end of the day, it’s on them.”
Even as Nebraska recruits talent at receiver, such as heralded freshman Wan’Dale Robinson and four other newcomers on scholarship, the decision for the Huskers was not difficult to keep Kade positioned in a prominent spot.
“Kade’s one of all our favorite guys,” Frost said. “He comes to work with a smile on his face every day. Really smart. He knows all of the receiver spots, a guy we can rely on.”
While Kade is putting himself in position to be placed on scholarship, he remains in part defined by his walk-on status. As much as he hoped in high school to earn that scholarship offer, he wears the walk-on badge with honor.
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“It’s a fraternity,” he said. “We’re all happy to be in it.”
They’ve got a hand signal and a name for the group, coined by inside linebackers coach Barrett Ruud. The lead recruiter on Nebraska high school players, Ruud grew accustomed in his first year on staff to introduce walk-on visitors as “part of the wolfpack.”
The scholarship players, too, embrace the wolfpack, Kade said.
He will always wear the Warner name with pride, too. During the annual fan day in August, Kade said, he’s met Nebraska fans in the autograph and photo line who want only to talk to him about Kurt’s old games.
On Sundays in the fall if he catches a glimpse of Kurt on the NFL Network, Kade said it still often surprises him.
“I’m just like, ‘Oh, and … there’s my dad.’ ”
Kurt said he tries to help his boys deal with the pressure of playing football as the son of an NFL icon.
“I know there’s something there,” Kurt said. “But Kade has always handled it extremely well. I think he understands, especially at this level, that until he separates himself, he might be known as Kurt Warner’s son. It’s part of what drives him a little bit — to be proud of his heritage, but also be excited to write his own story.”
(Top photo: Courtesy of the Warner Family)
