Larry Fitzgerald is now a college graduate, fulfilling a promise he made to his late mother more than a decade earlier.
Arizona Cardinals wide receiver began his college education at Pittsburgh where he was a student for two years and one of the best college football players in the nation. Fitzgerald was a Heisman finalist in his second and final season at Pitt before declaring for the NFL Draft where the Cardinals used the No. 3 pick on him in the 2004 NFL Draft.
Although he ended his education at Pitt to pursue a career in the NFL, Fitzgerald didn’t put an end to pursuing his college degree. With his mother Carol battling breast cancer that would claim her life in 2003, he made a promise to her that he would get his college degree.
“I wanted to make sure I was doing what I promised her I’d do,” Fitzgerald said.
On Saturday, Fitzgerald graduated from the University of Phoenix where he majored in communications and minored in marketing.
Fitzgerald took online courses throughout the year, including during the NFL season, and completed his coursework while traveling across the world.
“I was the only one in my family who hadn’t graduated,” Fitzgerald said. “So now, finally being able to graduate, I’m part of the family now, for real.”
Whether it takes you four years to graduate from college or it takes you parts of two decades to get your degree, it’s worthwhile time spent pursuing something that will better your life.
For Fitzgerald, he already had his dream job and it would have been easy to forget about completing his degree, but he is a man who didn’t want to let that promise to his late mother go unfulfilled, which says a lot about the man she helped raise.
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