Kurt Warner's life will be changed by what happens Sunday night at the Georgia Dome.

I always tried to remove myself from the game plan. Once I felt comfortable with the plan, it was time to put it down. The more I would study, the more tense I would become. So I tried to relax as much as possible. The game plan wasn't something new. I knew the formations and my reads. It was just a question of finding that place in my own mind where I could get really comfortable.

I tried to do other things. Reading People magazine had a calming influence on me. I would read People cover to cover before every game because it would take my mind off the game.

My superstitious nature would kick in again when I got to the stadium. I removed my clothes in a very specific order: the shoes first, followed by the socks, which got tucked in the shoes. My shirt and T-shirt would come off and go on the right-side hooks. My pants would go on the first hook on the left side. There would always be a hanky in my left pocket.

After I got dressed, I would get some towels and make a bed in front of my locker. I would lay down and either doze off or prop my feet up and continue to read People magazine, with my game plan notes on my left side.

The players would all leave one another alone. It was an eerie silence unlike any other game. Everybody was very respectful of everyone else's space. It seemed to be accentuated and more concentrated. There would be a looseness in the locker room before playing certain teams, but that wasn't the case for the Super Bowl. Nobody was trying to be a smart aleck or be cute. Everybody understood what was at stake. And everybody went into their own little world as to how they wanted to prepare for the single greatest day of your life.

I would get taped and be dressed in a very familiar fashion. My socks came first. Then I would put my pads in my pants -- first the right knee pad, then the left, then the right thigh pad, then the left. I used old knee pads as hip protectors. They would be tucked inside my jock. I used one strip of tape around me to hold the pads in place. After the pants came the shoulder pads and jersey.

Just before going on the field, I would go over the bullet points in my game plan, things that were important to me -- down and distance, special plays and special situations that might come up. At the time, a player doesn't get overwhelmed by the magnitude of the game, or whether he will be the hero or the goat. You are more focused on what you have to do. You don't dwell on the "what ifs?" You try to keep the routine as normal as possible.

When we were ready to go, I took my helmet and -- as a gunfighter would twirl a pistol -- I would twirl it through the ear holes one time and toss it on my head. As I left the locker room, right below the exit sign there was a Redskins logo. It was there for every game, including the Super Bowls in Pasadena and Tampa. I'd touch it with my right hand for good luck.

I was the last player introduced. At Super Bowl XVII, as I entered the field through the tunnel during introductions, the only thought I had in my mind was, "Please don't trip." The world is watching, I'm on TV, and I'm afraid I might trip on the goal line or something.

I don't remember the first five minutes of that Super Bowl. I wasn't aware of it until about a month after the game when my dad was visiting me in Washington. I said, "We're going to go look at the Super Bowl together. I want to share this moment with my dad." Watching the film, I couldn't tell you the formation or a play, not even the simplest plays I had run for 2½ years under Joe Gibbs.

Then we ran a reverse to Alvin Garrett ,and I got kicked in the head trying to block. Everything then made sense to me. That's when I got jolted back into reality and was back in the flow of the game. Then it felt like normal again, like we were just playing the Miami Dolphins in a football game. You know how sometimes you are in a fog and then you stub your toe? Suddenly, there is a greater sense of awareness. That's exactly what it was like.

The single greatest moment of my life was taking that final snap against the Dolphins. I almost cried. I got into the huddle and could barely say the words: "Winning Super Bowl formation on two." I get goose bumps thinking about it now. I remember walking to the line of scrimmage, taking the snap, kneeling down and throwing my finger up and the ball up. We were the champions of the world.

When you look at film of the Pittsburgh Steelers beating the Los Angeles Rams in the Super Bowl in 1980, you will see Terry Bradshaw come off the field in exactly the same way I did. That snapshot of Bradshaw had stayed with me for three years. With that visual image in the my mind, I always thought if I ever won the Super Bowl, that was how I would walk off the field.

Either Kurt Warner or Steve McNair will become a Super Bowl-winning quarterback on Sunday night -- and it will change their life. The winning quarterback joins a very exclusive fraternity. There are several world leaders and billionaires around, but only about 20 world champion quarterbacks.

In my career I played in two Super Bowls, two Pro Bowls and was the league's MVP. Yet the single thing that people remember me for is a broken leg. If you mentioned my name to 10 people and mentioned my name, the greatest percentage of them would say, "Isn't he the guy who broke his leg?"