Larry Fitzgerald, Jr. and his Minnesota Roots.

It's a nice story: his father played basketball at Indiana State with Larry Bird ("I was the other Larry...") and became a Minnesota sportswriter, where he raised Larry Jr., who was a Vikings ballball.

He started in training camp and eventually would work the games, and sometimes, if there was no school on a Friday, Fitzgerald would head over to practice. Cris Carter, Randy Moss and Jake Reed would sometimes let Fitzgerald Jr. run drills with them.

“It was every child’s dream and I was living it,” Fitzgerald said.

Fitzgerald would earn big tips washing the cars of players. He’d work with the JUGS machine after practice, catching ball after ball. He’d talk to Coach Dennis Green and offensive coordinator Brian Billick. And he grew close to Carter, who thinks of Fitzgerald like a nephew and remains close to him to this day.

“Even if he grew up to be a pianist or something else, I would have still played a role because we spent so much time off the field together,” said Carter, now an analyst for ESPN. “He wasn’t just a ballboy to me. As he got older, we became more friends than mentor and protégé.”

Nice story.
Hail Larry.