There's More to Fitzgerald's Phenomenon

TEMPE, Ariz. – Larry Fitzgerald should lug around a telephone booth, to step in and out of whenever he feels the need to change personalities.

The Arizona Cardinals' incomparable wide receiver moves smoothly from Superman to Renaissance man, depending on the situation. On the field he is fearless, a human marvel who possesses keen eyesight and the ability to leap over double coverage and tall buildings. Off the field, he's a seeker, an adventurer, and, incongruously, a man who would rather walk across hot coals than talk about where he has been or how he got there.

Fitzgerald didn't exactly have to be forced to the podium Friday afternoon, after the Cardinals went through another practice in preparation for Super Bowl XLIII. But it was clear this was perhaps the one place on the planet where he felt uncomfortable, maybe even out of his element.
Put Fitzgerald in the whirl of the Cardinals' vibrant offense and he's the apex around which all the pieces revolve. He amassed 419 yards in three playoff games, surpassing the postseason record previously held by Hall of Famer Jerry Rice. But nudge Fitzgerald into the limelight, a limelight almost every other Cardinal is gleefully soaking up in this extraordinary chapter in Arizona sporting history, and Fitzgerald stutter steps.

Pittsburgh secondary take note: the most dynamic player in all of football has a weak spot, but it's only apparent when he rips off the Cardinal red and goes all Clark Kent.

"If people ask what makes me tick, I would say winning. That definitely gets me excited and makes me happy," Fitzgerald said. "To be in this position is truly a blessing for everybody in this locker room. We've worked a long time, really hard, to be in this position. This is a fabulous opportunity, one that is not guaranteed to ever happen again. I think everybody in the locker room realizes that and is really dedicated to getting it done."

He's too modest to publicly explore an inner core that makes him one of the most fascinating of all professional athletes. At 25, he has already hiked the Inca Trail and climbed Machu Picchu in search of spiritual guidance, and challenged his inner fears by bungee-jumping in New Zealand. Great wealth and occupational downtime allow him luxuries most of us can only imagine, but what really sets Fitzgerald apart from his contemporaries is his old school 'tude.

Watch him after he scores (which is often), and gently flips the ball to an official. It's a humbleness and grace inherited from his mother, Carol, a health-care worker who died in 2003, after a seven-year battle with cancer. When she passed, Fitzgerald said he thought about getting a tattoo in her honor, but instead chose to let his dreadlocks grow so he might be reminded of her every time he looked in the mirror.

Watch him tongue-trip around the word "I" in interviews, deftly changing the subject to "we" and "team." It's a selfless trait he learned as the son of a sportswriter and broadcaster. Larry Fitzgerald, Sr., the longtime columnist for the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder and host of three sports talk radio shows in Minneapolis, used to take his young son to work, and by grade school Larry was a ball boy for the Vikings. For six seasons, Larry hung around and studied veteran receivers Cris Carter and Randy Moss, building a catalogue of experience before he ever played an NFL down.

Fitzgerald is hardly the fastest or the tallest receiver in the game today. His 40-yard-dash time of 4.83 seconds in the 2004 scouting combine was considered mediocre; his average leaping ability doesn't begin to explain how he accumulated 1,431 receiving yards this season, or became the youngest player ever to record 400 career receptions. Ask Fitzgerald how, despite his athletic limitations, he still manages to pluck passes out of the heavens while being sandwiched by defenders, how he has developed flawless timing and pinpoint positioning that enables him to tip the ball to himself, and he intuitively grimaces. It's easier to evade safeties than escape using the "I" word.

"I wasn't blessed with blazing speed." Fitzgerald said. "I'm not like Santonio Holmes or Nate Washington. I'm not running 4.2 and stuff like that like those guys, so I had to develop other things that were going to be able to help me win down field. My jumping ability is definitely one of those, and my hands, I have strong hands to be able to pull it away from guys. I think those are definitely two of the strengths of my game."

Watch Fitzgerald closely -- or, better, examine a photograph of one of his catches -- and the true genius of his gift comes into focus. On many occasions, he's actually pulling down passes with his eyes closed. It's another skill he learned at a young age, after his grandfather, Robert Johnson, the founder of a Chicago optometry clinic, trained Fitzgerald to do complicated hand-eye drills while balancing on beams and wobbly boards.

Designed to improve the first grader's attention span and grades, the spatial exercises, honed over summer trips to Chicago, helped Fitzgerald achieve what is called "visual dominance" and elite athleticism.

"He used to do vision therapy with me, just a lot of different drills he would do to strengthen my hand-eye coordination," Fitzgerald said. "I think those skills definitely are paying dividends for me. My eyes are good, seeing the ball pretty well, and I think he had a hand in helping me get here."

Pittsburgh's defense led the NFL in pass defense, shutting down most every receiver it has faced this season. Steelers defensive coordinator Dick LeBeau, with two weeks to prepare, is cooking up some schemes Warner and Fitzgerald haven't seen on tape. LeBeau jokes that his safeties are carrying around stepladders, to keep pace in the air with the high-flying Fitzgerald.

"I think it's going to be a little bit of a chess match from the standpoint of rolling coverage to Larry as well as us moving Larry around, trying to put him in positions where he can avoid that." Cardinals coach Ken Whisenhunt said. "Their secondary is playing very well. They've done a nice job in the past games that I've watched on tape. I'm sure that they'll have some different coverages where they'll be doubling Larry or rolling coverages his way. We're going to have to move Larry a bit and see if we can be successful."

There's a reason Arizona quarterback Kurt Warner has been reborn in the desert. He has more options at his fingertips than he did all those years in St. Louis, when he won his first Super Bowl: there are 1,000-yard receivers Anquan Boldin and Steve Breaston, running back Edgerrin James who, now that he's no longer banished to the bench, can mold a zero-yard gain into a couple of yards and, especially, Fitzgerald, Warner's favorite target.

"I know what it takes for Larry to be open. I can put it in certain places where only he can get it or a place where I know he can get it," Warner said. "With that you have the ultimate confidence. If you put it in the right spot, he's going to make a play on the ball. I've seen him do it time and time again. All he has to do is get a step on you and he's so big and strong and athletic that he's going to get it. I understand what it means for different guys to be open and for Larry to be open. We try to take advantage of that."

The other day, someone asked Warner why Fitzgerald had turned down a slew of opportunities that surely would enhance his Q rating, make him the most recognizable athlete in the Valley. Warner's answer was simple, perfect.

"Because Larry doesn't need all that attention," Warner said. "He's very content with the person that he is."