When Josh Warner (Cato, NY/Cato-Meridian) was playing football for tiny Cato-Meridian High School outside of Baldwinsville, NY, he was an undersized member of the offensive line who, despite his smaller stature, caught the eye of Rocco Salomone, the head football coach at The College at Brockport.
Weighing just 245 pounds, Salomone recognized Warner's potential and admired his quickness while battling in the trenches, even if Warner didn't possess that prototypical size and build of an offensive lineman. Salomone convinced Warner to play football for Brockport, and it was here, under the watchful eye of Salomone and his coaching staff, that Warner began to grow as a player. Literally.
In between his freshman and sophomore seasons, Warner dedicated himself to Brockport's offseason workout routine and conditioning programs and developed into a 295-pound blocking machine. Utilizing a weight room for the first time – Warner said Cato-Meridian didn't have a weight room – Warner's body blossomed into one fit for an offensive lineman. He became an All-American and would go on to anchor a Brockport offensive line that, during his senior season of 2000, went 8-0 in the regular season and earned the school's first-ever berth in the NCAA Division III postseason tournament.
More than 10 years removed from his last snap as a member of the Golden Eagles' football team, Warner, who went on to enjoy a productive career in the National Football League, was recently honored by D3football.com as a member of its team of the 2000s.
Each decade, D3football.com honors the best football players from the past 10 years, and even though he only played one season of football during the decade, Warner's playing career was so productive, he earned a spot on this prestigious All-Decade squad.
Warner, who starred on the offensive line for the Golden Eagles from 1997-2000, earned a spot as a guard on the team. Warner never allowed a sack during his four-year playing career, which included 31 consecutive starts from the end of his freshman year through his senior season. After leading Brockport to an 8-0 regular season record during the 2000 season, the first undefeated regular season in school history, Warner was named to numerous All-America teams and earned a spot in the Aztec Bowl, the Division III All-Star game.
“Yeah, I was a little bit surprised,” to make this team, said Warner, who currently resides in Chicago, Ill. “Just having a first-team honor is a pretty cool accomplishment. Absolutely, I have great memories of my time at Brockport. To still represent Brockport while living in Chicago, it's a pretty cool honor. Playing for Rocco was great, and if this award, this honor, what I did at Brockport can help Rocco and Brockport with its current recruiting process, that's the most important thing to me.”
Led by Warner's excellent blocking, the 2000 Golden Eagles saw star running back Courtlan Green run for 1,115 yards. At the time, it was the second-highest single-season rushing total by a Brockport back. Warner and the rest of the offensive line also allowed Green to score 12 rushing touchdowns, the highest single-season rushing TD production in school history at the time. Under Warner's watch, the Golden Eagles averaged 177 rushing yards per game over his final three seasons.
Brockport reached its first-ever NCAA Division III football tournament in 2000, outscoring the opposition 207-57 to earn the first of four-straight postseason appearances for Salomone and the Golden Eagles. Following its unblemished regular season, Warner and the Golden Eagles hosted Springfield in a 2000 first-round NCAA game, and even though the Green and Gold fell to Springfield, Warner still maintains great memories from his time on campus.
“Going undefeated, earning a spot in the NCAA's and hosting an NCAA playoff game, absolutely those were the highlights of my career,” said Warner, who now works as a dealer sales manager for ADESA Wisconsin.
“Our goal was to make the playoffs, and we knew we were a good team. While it was cool to make the playoffs, we knew we had the talent to beat Springfield, and if we'd gotten past that first game, we definitely could have made some noise. But that year was amazing. We had the best atmosphere at games, the whole village of Brockport came out to support us.”
After graduating with a criminal justice degree in 2001, Warner became the first player in the history of the Golden Eagle football program to play in the NFL. It was common during Warner's last two seasons to see NFL scouts in attendance at Brockport home football games, checking out the left tackle's moves on the field.
“Josh was an outstanding football player, and to me, he was the best football player that I ever coached or coached against at his position,” Salomone said of his All-Decade lineman.
“He was so overwhelmingly good at both run and pass blocking, he had great size, strength and technique, and his work ethic was amazing. He never missed a practice or a game for us. For his size (6-foot-5, 305 pounds), Josh was a very good athlete and was extremely coordinated.”
Warner was expected to be a late-round draft selection in the 2001 NFL draft, and his chances of getting drafted looked good after nearly every NFL team worked Warner out before the draft, but Warner wasn't selected in the seven-round draft. Undeterred, Warner signed with the New York Giants in the spring, and reported to the Giants' rookie training camp, where he was among the last players cut. He spent two weeks on the Green Bay Packers' practice squad, but was also let go without seeing any playing time.
In January of 2002, fresh off starting as the left guard for the World Bowl (NFL Europe) champion Berlin Thunder, Warner was given a second chance in the NFL, signing with the Chicago Bears. In the Windy City, Warner played for head coach Dick Jauron, seeing action at center and guard in 10 games for “Da Bears”, including a Monday Night Football game against the Green Bay Packers in the newly renovated Soldier Field.
After three years with the Bears, Warner was eventually cut before signing with the Washington Redskins in 2005. Though he never saw game action again after leaving Chicago, Warner remains grateful for his chance to play professional football, especially considering his humble roots.
“You don't see a lot of Division III players in the NFL,” Warner said. “But it's rare for a DIII player to be in the NFL. To stick around for five years and be on different teams' rosters, that says a lot about how I played the game. There's a lot of talented guys who never even had a shot at the league, but having that DIII background and mentality helped me. I played the game for the love of the game, and I knew I couldn't ever take a play off and had to work hard for everything.”
Among his impressive career accolades, Warner was a first-team All-American selection by the American Football Coaches Association (AFCA), D3football.com, USAFootball.com and the Football Gazette. He earned second-team honors on the Hewlett-Packard All-American team, was named to the Football Gazette All-East team and also the Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) Upstate New York All-Star team. For leading the way on the Golden Eagles' offensive line, Warner was also selected as the Rochester Area Male Athlete of the Year.
In 2006, Warner was honored by Brockport with a spot in the Golden Eagle Athletics Hall of Fame.
