Pitt receiver among nation’s best

? The best wide receiver in college football is obsessed. Every night, Pittsburgh’s Larry Fitzgerald can’t get to sleep until he’s sure he’s tucked in with his two favorite footballs.

They represent links to his past and bright future.

One is a ball he has had since high school. It used to be the only ball that shared the bed with him, but just before he arrived at Pitts, a friend gave him an official NFL ball. The old beat-up high school ball had to make room.

“I kind of put that one in there to keep me motivated,” said Fitzgerald of the NFL ball.

Motivation doesn’t seem to be an issue with Fitzgerald. But if bunking with footballs doesn’t don’t work, he has drawn enough inspiration and motivation from last spring to fuel him for years.

In April, Fitzgerald’s mother, Carol, died after a seven-year struggle with cancer. It was the start of a spring that ended with Billy Gaines, a Panthers receiver and friend, died when he fell 25 feet through a church ceiling while intoxicated.

Fitzgerald withdrew into the sport that has always been there for him. The sport his mother allowed him to play as a grade-school kid, even when Larry Sr., the sports editor at the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder, told him he couldn’t.

“Football throughout the season and the offseason last year, when everything was kind of happening, it was kind of like my outlet,” Fitzgerald said. “It was my safe haven from everything. It kind of deflected the pain and suffering I was going through at the time. I could go out here and work out. I was over there lifting weights five or six hours a day. The coaches had to run me out of there. That was where I felt comfortable, and I had people around me that really cared about me.”

When preseason workouts began, Fitzgerald was ready to improve on the 69 catches, 1,005 yards and 12 touchdowns he amassed as a freshman. His weight-room diligence had given him an additional 15 pounds for his 6-foot-3 frame, which now carries 225.

The Heisman Trophy candidate has 60 catches for 1,174 yards and 16 TDs in eight games. He leads the nation in receiving yards per game and scoring (12 points per game). He has set two NCAA records this season, one of them 14 consecutive games with a TD catch.

“He is as good a football player as I’ve ever been around,” Pittsburgh coach Walt Harris said. “The one that’s probably closest to him is when I was at Tennessee when Reggie White was there; and I was at Ohio State when Eddie George was there his senior year, when he won the Heisman. (Fitzgerald) is that dominant and that valuable, and he has helped us in ways that only a coach would know. He’s a threat, and it forces people to do certain things in order to give them the best chance.”

Virginia Tech learned about Fitzgerald’s ability to make acrobatic catches when he burned Vincent Fuller and Ronyell Whitaker for five catches, 105 yards and three touchdowns last season. Two of the touchdowns came on fade routes, when Fitzgerald used his 39-inch vertical leap to pick the ball out of the air.

“Larry Fitzgerald is just the best I’ve ever seen at going up and getting the ball,” said Hokies coach Frank Beamer, whose team plays today at Pitt. “He’s got a big body, and it’s a fast body, too. I think he has got a great knack of positioning his body against yours and going up and coming down with it. He’s the best I’ve ever seen.”