Wholly inspired: Larry Fitzgerald is the product of special forces—physical and emotional, collegial and professional, individual and familial—that have shaped him into an NFL-ready receiver and polished person at age 20

Sporting News, The, March 8, 2004 by Chuck Finder

Midway through his senior year, Larry and Carol Fitzgerald decided that because of academic needs, their eldest son would attend prep school. They sent him to an eastern Pennsylvania outpost with a historical name, Valley Forge Military Academy. A year and a half later, in 2002, he arrived at Pitt.

History will record an inauspicious beginning at the school. Fitzgerald caught one pass for 11 yards in his opening game, against Ohio University, and the first fade thrown in his direction was batted away by a cornerback. That is believed to be the last fade-pattern pass deflected from Fitzgerald's large, soft hands. "When we got back to it," Harris says of the route, "it brought his game back. He made great catches from then on."

Fitzgerald learned Harris' intricate passing game slowly. "I didn't know all the X's and O's," he says. He contributed early as a freshman, catching 30 passes for 457 yards and three touchdowns in his first seven games. Then, buoyed by progress in the passing game and the return of the fade pattern, he went on a tear over the next 19 games: 131 catches for 2,220 yards and 31 touchdowns (averages of 7, 117 and 1.6). He produced a touchdown reception in an NCAA-record 18 straight games. He led Division I-A with 1,595 yards receiving and 22 touchdowns in the 2003 regular season and walked away with the Biletnikoff Award, as the nation's outstanding receiver; the Walter Camp Award, as the Division I player of the year, and a second-place finish--the highest for a sophomore--in the Heisman Trophy balloting.

"Valley Forge and Pitt were a perfect situation," says Carter, who keeps in regular phone contact with his surrogate nephew. "It did help to develop and build him. Being away, it helped him appreciate his family. And the family has been very, very close. I didn't add anything to it; it's the Fitzgerald family. What they've done with him, that really is the fundamental thing."

Genetics cannot be overstated here. Larry Fitzgerald Sr. was a Small College All-American lineman at Indiana State and had a tryout with the New York Giants. Carol Fitzgerald founded not one but two AIDS-related agencies in their community. The Fitzgerald family was selected the United Way's family of the year in the Twin Cities in February 2003. The father was a respected media type. The mother was a seven-year breast cancer survivor.

Barely two months later, the insidious disease had invaded Carol's lungs and brain. In the hospital, she asked Carter to watch after her boys. She died April 10. She remains such a presence in the lives of her three men, the two Larrys and Marcus, that her voice still is on their home answering machine: "You've reached the Fitzgeralds ..." Father and sons dial their own number just to hear her.

"She was such a high-character individual and oh, so helpful to the community," Brookhart says. "She put everyone ahead of herself. Very, very unselfish. And that carried over to Larry."

This was a woman who used to regularly call Tyler Palko, Pitt's sophomore quarterback and Fitzgerald's roommate, not only to check up on Larry but to allow Palko to "kick his butt" if necessary. This was a woman so close to her son that Larry returned to wearing his hair like hers, in braids. This was a woman to whom he dedicated this past season and the rest of his career, to whom he promised he would return to college and earn his degree.