A rookie typically is overwhelmed by his first NFL practice, no matter how glittery his college résumé. He is stunned by the size, speed and skill of his new teammates, some of whom he watched on television while growing up and idolized. His brain is short-circuited by the amount of information thrown at him by his new coaches, and he needs a bit of recovery time to settle down and convince himself that he truly belongs.
That won't be the case for Larry Fitzgerald.
Not only will the wide receiver be one of the most gifted players on the roster of whichever NFL club he joins within the first few picks of the draft in nine days, but his initial practice will have a been-there, done-that feel. Before Fitzgerald became the Heisman Trophy runner-up as a precocious sophomore at the University of Pittsburgh and the leader of a dazzling group of wideouts available for this draft, he was a ballboy for the Minnesota Vikings, impressing Dennis Green and the team's other coaches while playfully running routes with two of the league's top receivers, Cris Carter and Randy Moss.
"He opened the door for me as far as being able to see professional athletes work on an everyday basis, watching them and seeing how they got so good, what they did to make them play so well on Sundays," Fitzgerald said of Green during the NFL scouting combine in Indianapolis in late February. "A lot of people don't ever get to see that. I got to see the work ethic."
He may get to see Green work first-hand again. Green returned to the NFL in January as coach of the Arizona Cardinals, who have the third overall draft pick. The Cardinals could choose a receiver to go with 2003 rookie sensation Anquan Boldin, and Fitzgerald should be the first -- or, at worst, second -- of the five to seven receivers likely to come off the board in the first round.
"I've known Larry since he was 8 years old," Green said at the combine. "His father and I had a close relationship. He's a fabulous young man. When you talk with him, you know you're around star quality. He, like Cris Carter, can expand the field for you. He has great hands, great speed, great footwork. It probably helped him, being around our team, but he was probably destined for greatness anyway."
Fitzgerald's father, Larry Sr., played college football at Indiana State and made it to an NFL camp with the New York Giants before being cut. He is the sports editor of the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder and co-hosted Green's radio show. When the relationship between Green and the Minneapolis media turned combative, the elder Fitzgerald was Green's primary defender.
Green took on Larry Jr. and his younger brother, Marcus, now a running back at Marshall, as ballboys. Larry Jr. worked for the Vikings for four years, starting when he was 13, and grew close to Carter. He was pronounced ready to play in the NFL by Green while he was in high school.
"He didn't tell me that he wanted to play in the NFL until he was a freshman in high school,'' Larry Fitzgerald Sr. said by telephone yesterday. "I never pushed him. His mother never pushed him, other than pushing him out there to play pee-wee football maybe a little earlier than I would have wanted."
Green and the other Vikings coaches told him, Fitzgerald said, not to squander his ability, prodding him to develop as a person and as a football player. That message was reinforced at home by Larry Sr. and Fitzgerald's mother, Carol, an AIDS activist who died last April after a seven-year battle with breast cancer.
"He benefited from being around so many people who had an impact on him,'' the elder Fitzgerald said. "They really reinforced what we'd been telling him about respecting your elders and respecting discipline and if you're going to be a good person, that's where it starts -- respect."
Those who meet the younger Fitzgerald are struck by how polite and engaging he is. When he scores a touchdown, he calmly hands the ball to a referee like his boyhood football hero, Barry Sanders. When he was named the city's 2003 sportsman of the year, Fitzgerald told a banquet audience in Pittsburgh that one of his goals is to be on his school's board of trustees.
Fitzgerald does not have blazing speed, but scouts love his size, quickness, strength, timing, leaping ability, precise route-running and strong, sure hands. He reportedly has 20/15 vision. In two seasons at Pittsburgh, he had 161 catches for 2,677 yards and 34 touchdowns. He had a touchdown reception in 18 straight games, an NCAA record. Texas's Roy Williams closed the gap when he was timed at an eye-catching 4.37 seconds in the 40-yard dash in his campus workout for NFL scouts last month, but many talent evaluators around the league say they remain convinced that Fitzgerald will be the best receiver to emerge from this draft.
Fitzgerald, 20, was declared eligible for the draft by the league because he spent a year at a prep school before his two years in college -- fulfilling the NFL's draft-eligibility requirement that he be at least three years removed from high school. He will remain eligible for the draft even if the league prevails in its appeal of a federal judge's Feb. 5 ruling in the Maurice Clarett lawsuit and bars Clarett and former USC wideout Mike Williams from the draft. Had the NFL rejected his draft application, Fitzgerald said, he would have returned to Pittsburgh for another season without a legal challenge.
"You don't want to fight against the NFL,'' he said. "It probably would not have been in my best interests."
