Tampa, Fla. ? Larry Fitzgerald soars above the outstretched arms of defenders, caresses the football with his fingertips, and clings to it as he comes back down to earth.

The scene is all too familiar to his teammates and coaches, and now the 25-year-old receiver’s amazing skills are the talk of the Super Bowl. He could, single-handedly, be the potent equalizer the Arizona Cardinals’ need against Pittsburgh’s powerhouse defense.

Watch him. He has an uncanny knack for lifting his 6-foot-3 body off the ground at precisely the right moment, at the right height, so he can be exactly where he needs to be to grab the ball.

“He is doing what he was born to do,” Steelers wide receiver Hines Ward said.

Fitzgerald is the antithesis of the stereotypical brash receiver. After he makes spectacular touchdown catches, he simply flips the ball to the official.

“I aspire to be great,” Fitzgerald said. “That’s one of the reasons to play the game — to win, to be great. I feel that if you aren’t trying to be the best, then I don’t understand what your motivation is in this game as a player.”

His friends keep him humble. Former Minnesota Vikings great Cris Carter, a longtime pal and mentor, tells him he’s not the best receiver in the NFL.

“He’s not better than Andre Johnson,” said Carter, who persistently nudges Fitzgerald to improve. He is the voice in Fitzgerald’s ear that whispers “what you did last week really doesn’t matter.”

Fitzgerald is as alert to detail in practice as he is in games, slapping his hands in disgust if he drops a pass.

“I don’t look too far in the future. I just look at today,” Fitzgerald said this week. “How can I be the best player I can be on Wednesday? How can I be the best player I can be on Thursday? If I can continue to chip away like that, then I can be the best player on Sunday.”

A measure of greatness is how well a player performs on the biggest stage. In his first three playoff games, Fitzgerald was phenomenal. His 419 yards receiving broke Jerry Rice’s NFL postseason record, and he still has a game to go. His three 100-yard receiving games tie him with Tom Fears, Rice and Randy Moss for most in a career postseason.

His 23 playoff catches include several of the climbing-to-the-stars variety, but also a mix of crossing routes, where he breaks wide open over the middle. On a few occasions, he’s bowled over would-be tacklers, something he never would have done in his early pro career.

Fitzgerald has been surrounded by football his entire life. His father, Larry Fitzgerald Sr., writes a column for the weekly Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder and became a close friend of Dennis Green while he coached the Vikings.

Perhaps the toughest time of his young life came in April of 2003 when Fitzgerald’s mother, Carol, died of breast cancer. He carries her driver’s license with him and wears dreadlocks because she wore them, too.

Carter said losing his mother is something football can never replace for Fitzgerald.

“I don’t care, he can catch a thousand-yarder, he’ll never have his mom with him,” Carter said. “There’s a part of him that will never be full or complete because of that.”