Former Super Bowl MVP and current NFL Network analyst Kurt Warner hosts The Moment, USA Network’s first unscripted series, giving people a second chance to live out their dreams.
Kurt Warner starred in one of sports’ greatest rags-to-riches stories. After failing to make an NFL roster in 1994, Warner was stocking shelves at an Iowa grocery store. Undeterred, he played his way up through the Arena Football League and NFL Europe, eventually becoming the St. Louis Rams’ starting quarterback in 1999. A few months later, he was named MVP of Super Bowl XXXIV.
It’s Super Bowl XLVII week when I talk with Warner, and his work as an NFL Network analyst has him hopping in New Orleans. But we’re taking a timeout from Xs and Os to talk about The Moment, USA Network’s first unscripted series, premiering Thursday, April 11, at 10pm ET. This inspirational show gives people a second chance to have their dream job, such as a sports photographer, orchestra conductor, racecar driver or inventor. After two weeks of intense training with a mentor, the hopefuls interview with a company that could offer them the chance of a lifetime.
Warner hosts the show and offers moral support and encouragement along the way. The hopefuls need all they can get. Some have to overcome personal demons, and some simply don’t have the skill or the will to go all the way.
“Following your dreams isn’t easy, and nobody said it was going to be,” Warner says. “But living your passion, doing what you love to do, going to work every day and enjoying it and enjoying the challenge of chasing what it is you always wanted to do far outweighs those negatives that we face along the way.”
Even if a job is offered, the person still has to weigh the effect on his or her family before accepting it. “Dreams aren’t just individual dreams when you have a wife and you have kids,” Warner says. “Chasing your dream sometimes means giving up stuff, and things may not work out in your favor and there’s the possibility of disappointment. But that’s what life’s about.”
Job or no job, each person takes a journey of self-discovery in The Moment. “Even if it’s the realization, ‘Hey, that’s not what I thought it was going to be. That’s not really what I want to do,’” Warner says. “‘The life I am living now with my family and being able to spend that time with them or whatever those things are, is really what I’ve always wanted out of life and I just needed to explore that to come to the realization of what I have and how special that really is.’”
