Over 17 seasons, Larry Fitzgerald formed relationships with dozens of people, sharing specific moments with some of them. With Fitzgerald's Hall of Fame induction imminent, a look at some of who have stories about their time with Fitz:
DEVIN FITZGERALD
When he was younger, Devin Fitzgerald would go to Cardinals games and hear the crowd chanting for his father. "Lar-RY, Lar-RY." Or approach them when they would go to the park.
"I was like, 'Well, he's a big deal, I guess,'" Devin said. "But he was always just Dad."
Devin is the eldest of Fitzgerald's three sons (Apollo and Milos), a burgeoning wide receiver on his own heading into his freshman year at Notre Dame, wearing the same No. 11 his father made famous. He always wanted to play football, but not because Dad wanted it. Devin wasn't allowed to play tackle football until seventh grade.
But he watched his father and picked up his habits, like proper diet and getting to sleep on time. He became a three-star recruit at Phoenix Brophy Prep, chose the Irish, and even graduated early to take part in Notre Dame spring ball.
"There are going to be comparisons, since we play the same sport, same position and everything," Devin said. "I'm just trying to create my own legacy. He is one of the best receivers to ever do it. I'm just trying to have my own career and if it turns out to be anything like his, that would be great."
Larry sees a son who worked hard to get everything he has accomplished on the football field.
"Nothing was given to Devin," Larry said. "I never ran a route for him, I never caught a pass for him, I never lifted a weight, I never conditioned, I never did anything for him. He did all of that on his own. That makes you proud."
Devin will be his father's presenter at his Hall of Fame induction. But even before that was known, Devin said he was always going to leave Notre Dame's training camp to be in Canton.
"I don't think coach (Marcus) Freeman would allow me to miss that," Devin said. "My Dad was trying to say I can't go because I'll miss a workout or whatever, but I'm like, 'I'm don't think Coach Freeman will let that happen.'"
ANDRE ROBERTS
When the Cardinals drafted Andre Roberts in the third round of the 2010 draft, the wide receiver struggled in his first training camp. He also had a bumpy early relationship with Larry Fitzgerald.
"If you let him tell it, he'll say that he hated me," Roberts said with a chuckle. "When we first started, he says I was full of myself. I don't think that was the case."
Their dynamic changed when Roberts went to Minnesota after that first season to train with Fitzgerald in Fitzgerald's hometown. Quickly, they became good friends, golfing buddies, and kindred spirits.
"I think he saw my work ethic and what I was trying to do, what kind of professional I was trying to be," Roberts said. "I was riding his coattails. Obviously, he was who he is and, you know, if there's somebody to follow, he was definitely that guy. He saw how I wanted to be a pro and ever since then, we started getting closer and then, obviously, our love for golf made it a little bit tighter."
Roberts' best receiving years in a 13-year NFL career came in those first four with the Cardinals, as Roberts played as the No. 2 to Fitzgerald for some of that time. He continued to be a frequent guest at Fitzgerald's Minnesota house and those offseason workouts.
Roberts figured Fitzgerald was headed for the Hall of Fame all along. But when the two hang out, Fitz is just "the guy I know."
"We will go out to dinner and if people are around asking him for his autograph and all those kinds of things, then (he's 'Fitz'), but on an everyday basis, we obviously play golf and just chill out the house," Roberts said. "It's just normal until we go out somewhere and you realize he's not that normal in everybody else's eyes."
Fitzgerald is an avid golfer, having won the Pebble Beach Pro-Am a couple of times. But if there is still any tension between he and Roberts, it might be in that world.
"I'm better on the golf course," Roberts said. "I would say I kind of got him into golf, so that should be the case. But I think he'd say the same."
CHRIS "CUP" COLLINS
Chris Collins was an assistant equipment manager in 2004 when Larry Fitzgerald arrived in Arizona. Collins, nicknamed "Cup," had an idea of who Fitzgerald would be. Collins was close with the Minnesota Vikings equipment guys, and with Fitzgerald having spent years as a Vikings ballboy, they told Collins Fitzgerald was a good kid.
In those days, Fitzgerald was also a young kid – just turned 21 – with little to do. So the third overall pick in the draft would lean back on his ballboy roots, which included grabbing towels out of the dryer, folding them, and putting them out for the players the next day.
"In all my years of professional equipment and college equipment, I think Larry Fitzgerald is the only person that ever came to the equipment room to help fold towels," Collins said. "But he just liked to be around. He was curious like, 'Hey, what are you guys doing? What are you up to? How do you do this?' He just wanted to soak it all up, just not on the field but off the field."
Fitzgerald smiles at the memory. In those days, besides playing football, equipment work was all he knew.
"When I got here, I was 20 years old, I didn't have any relationship to anybody outside of the building, so you know, Mark Ahlemeier, and Stein (Steve Christensen) and Cup, they were my family. I didn't have anything to do. I didn't have any furniture in my house. All I had was literally a bed. I didn't even have a TV. I literally didn't have anything. I would get home, I would go to sleep. I would set my alarm clock on the floor and get back up and go to practice the next morning and kind of do the same thing every day. I loved it and I got a chance to know people in the building."
Collins did more with Fitzgerald than just fold towels. Fitzgerald got Collins to be his post-practice human JUGS machine, telling Collins to stand seven or eight yards away and throw the ball up, down, left, right, forcing Fitzgerald to react to the unpredictability.
Collins said he can't remember Fitzgerald ever dropping one.
"My shoulder was dragging a little bit at the end of the season, but it was well worth it," Collins said. "He reached his goal of getting into the Hall of Fame, and if I had a very, very, very small part in doing that, I was more than happy to do so."
JOHN SKELTON
Larry Fitzgerald made dozens of incredible catches in his career, but for sheer difficulty, an overtime grab of a John Skelton pass in the final game of the 2011 season – keeping alive a game-winning drive – might be near the top.
The dive of the low Skelton missile and subsequent one-handed catch against the Seahawks won't show up in a rundown of Fitz's career, but it epitomized that period between Kurt Warner's retirement, Carson Palmer's arrival, and how much those interim quarterbacks could rely on Fitz.
"Larry's ball skills are incredible," Skelton said. "Anyone that knows football will tell you that if that ball's in the in the air, Larry's going to come down with it. That play specifically, it's one of those like, 'Oh, I got Larry wide open one-on-one on a slant. That's an easy pitch and catch.' Well, I rush, I make a bad throw, and I'm already kicking myself as the ball's leaving my hand knowing that I missed that throw.
"He just sticks his hand out there, one hand, rolls it in. I think it was for a first down. I always joke with people now, 'Hey, if you ever see a Larry Fitzgerald highlight catch it's probably because of one of my bad throws that made him look good.'"
Skelton, a one-time fifth-round pick out of Fordham, ended up completing 82 passes to Fitzgerald in their three years together, getting into Fitz's top five (Palmer, Warner, Kyler Murray, Josh McCown.) That was 26 percent of all of Skelton's NFL completions. He still feels fortunate to have played with Fitzgerald. It did help.
Skelton said there was a rule never to overthrow Fitzgerald. For one, any throw in the vicinity, Fitz would catch it. Second, Fitzgerald was sensitive about his speed, and an overthrow would leave him blaming himself.
"There's a margin for error, but also, he's kind of always open," Skelton said. "I know it's like a cliché, but he could have coverage over the top and someone in trail position and you give him a chance. He was a dog and he'd go up and he'd snatch it."
JERRY SULLIVAN
The first time Jerry Sullivan coached with the Cardinals, Larry Fitzgerald had not yet arrived. Sullivan was the team's wide receivers coach in 2001 and 2002, and the offensive coordinator in 2003. He championed the drafting of Anquan Boldin, but with the coaching change to Dennis Green, he was gone by 2004, Fitzgerald's rookie season.
But Boldin talked often about Sullivan's teaching, and when Sullivan was not working in the NFL, Fitzgerald finally got to hire Sullivan for personal coaching during the lockout of 2011. Sullivan stayed with Fitzgerald in Phoenix for a few months, then went to live with Fitzgerald in Minnesota up until the lockout ended and training camp finally began.
"He called and said, 'Why don't you come out to Phoenix?'" Sullivan recalled. "Larry had a lot of guys coming out, and his house kind of turned into a Travel Lodge. Guys came through, getting a couple of days of work here and there."
Fitzgerald was already a star, although it was the 2011 season in which Fitzgerald had his most efficient season, averaging a career-best 17.6 yards a reception (80-1,411).
"What I helped him to do was refine," Sullivan said. "He was the diamond and I kind of shined it up. He took my coaching very much to heart. I was hard on him and he listened. He was a good student. He never got overly impressed with who he was. I think he always lived with a little bit of fear that he wouldn't be as good as he could be. That's always a good trait for a player to have."
The two officially reunited in Fitzgerald's final two seasons when Sullivan was brought back to the Cardinals as a coach and consultant. (Sullivan stayed with the Cardinals in 2021.)
"He's forgotten more football than most people have ever seen," Fitzgerald said when Sullivan returned.
The relationship hasn't ended, just changed. Fitzgerald now has had Sullivan working with son Devin – Sullivan and Devin Fitzgerald worked alone on the field this spring next door to the Cardinals facility Larry worked in his whole career.
"Anquan was a lot like (Fitz), you know, they were both kind of cut out of the same cloth: very self-critical, very self-determined, very much their own guy," Sullivan said. "It's hard to be good. It's even harder to be great."
DAVID JOHNSON
The 32-yard pass was perfectly thrown to a wide-open running back David Johnson, who scored the touchdown against the Rams, and then handed the ball to a fan in the front row at State Farm Stadium.
Except the pass had come from Larry Fitzgerald. The man who finished with 121 touchdown catches in his NFL career, had tossed his one and only TD pass.
"The equipment guy came up to me and he was like, 'Did you really give Larry's one throw to a fan?'" Johnson said. "I was like, 'Ah man, my bad.' I didn't mean to. So I think they actually went back and got it from the lady. She was sweet about it."
The moment was one of the few bright ones in a lost season, the next-to-last game of 2018, the lone year of Steve Wilks and Josh Rosen. It didn't prevent a loss. But it was memorable from a guy who had long shown off his passing skills in practice.
"It was a good throw," Fitzgerald said with a smile. As for the near-loss of the ball, "we saw that it happened. That's all that matters."
Fitzgerald had always talked about being the best non-quarterback passer on the Cardinals, Johnson said. And Johnson was as talented of a pass catcher as a runner. When it was dialed up by offensive coordinator Byron Leftwich, all Johnson could think was 1) how excited Fitz was to get a chance to throw and 2) that he better not drop it.
It was the last home game of the season, as well, so given Fitzgerald's year-to-year status at that point, it also might've been Fitz's last game at State Farm Stadium.
"I was basically wide open, and I feel like those are the hardest ones to catch," Johnson said. "He threw a great pass. I didn't really have to slow down or anything or come back to the ball. When it happened in real time, I didn't even think of it like it was from Larry. I was just thinking it was a pass, you know, from Carson or any QB."
Fitzgerald actually did play QB once upon a time. He threw "a lot of touchdowns" as a high school freshman.
"I'd much rather catch them than throw them," Fitzgerald said.
JOSH MCCOWN
Josh McCown played in the NFL for 16 seasons, just one fewer than Fitzgerald. That career path in some ways was created by Fitzgerald in the first place.
"I think about that all the time," McCown said. "I'm like, forever indebted."
The equation was simple. Then-coach Dennis Green went all in on McCown as his initial quarterback in 2004, even though the Cardinals picked third in the draft and were going to have a shot at Philip Rivers or Ben Roethlisberger. Green wanted Fitzgerald at No. 3 instead.
"I was the opening day starter for a few teams, and the first one was the Cardinals, and it was in large part I think because of how good everyone knew Larry could be," McCown said.
McCown still has the voicemail Green left him – before the draft -- telling McCown how much he believed in the third-year player and how he was the likely starter that season and Fitz's first QB. (McCown, coincidentally, is now the quarterbacks coach with the Minnesota Vikings, working with Fitzgerald's final NFL quarterback in Kyler Murray.)
McCown completed 84 passes to Fitzgerald in 2004 and 2005, including Fitz's first catch and first touchdown. The two remain friends, with Fitzgerald pulling McCown and Anquan Boldin into a three-way chat earlier this year.
"If it's not Larry in that (draft) spot, it's Eli Manning or Ben, you're probably on the phone with somebody else right now," McCown said. "You know what I mean? Like, I don't know how that plays out, but yeah, I credit him tremendously for the opportunity."
CHRISTIAN KIRK
When Christian Kirk was drafted in 2018 by the Cardinals, the wide receiver was joined by running back Chase Edmonds in the draft and in the wide receiver room by undrafted Trent Sherfield, and the three of them became fast friends. The Three Musketeers, if you will.
Larry Fitzgerald, by then going into his 15th season, eventually turned into the fourth.
"One of the best things that Fitz ever said to me, and I'm sure he said it to Chase and Trent, is how we kind of reinvigorated him, re-energized him to fall back in love with the process," Kirk said. "To really enjoy to come to work every day, the road trips.
"We'd laugh and joke about it, but nights before a game, after our team meeting, we were crashing in Fitz's room, laying on his floor asking questions and having him tell us stories. Everywhere he went, we went, and by the end (of our time together) it was vice versa."
Kirk couldn't have dreamed of a better teammate. Kirk grew up in the Valley, idolizing Fitzgerald. "He was the constant, right?"
A photo of a 6-year-old Kirk with Cardinals rookie Larry Fitzgerald surfaced when Kirk was drafted. It took a little time for Kirk to get past the nervousness of sharing the same position room. The quartet spent three seasons together, until Fitzgerald finished his career after the 2020 season.
"I don't exactly know how it came about," Fitzgerald said. "I just know those guys made my last few years so much more enjoyable than it would have been if they hadn't been around. As you get older, you start to get more rigid, more set in your ways. When you were around those guys, they kept me young."
All three remain close friends with the Hall of Famer. Kirk never could have imagined that for his life while growing up in Scottsdale watching No. 11 on Sundays.
"We all came in together, and here are just three young bucks just trying to cling on to Hall of Famer and get all the knowledge that we could get," Kirk said. "We're just all grateful that he even allowed us to become as close as we did with him."
