It was a promise 13 years in the making, but a promise is a promise.
Cardinals wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald kept his word to his late mother, and earned his college degree, graduating in communications with a minor in marketing from the University of Phoenix.
The 32-year-old wideout initially gave his word to his mother when he was enrolled at the University of Pittsburgh, before she died in 2002 from breast cancer.
“I feel blessed to have had her for 19 years, and she was around long enough to shape me into the man I am today,” Fitzgerald told Dan Bickley of the Arizona Republic. “But I’m sad at the fact that she busted her ass for so many years so I could live my dream, and she never saw the things I could’ve given her. That hurts.
“But I know when I’m out doing things in the community, she would be proud, because who I am now is a result of lessons she taught me when I had her.”
Fitzgerald was already on track to be an incredible football player, but has grown into the kind of person she’d have been proud of, and finishing up his schoolwork is only part of that effort.