Former Arizona Cardinals head coach Bruce Arians made a very good impression on star receiver Larry Fitzgerald and it began before Arians coached his first regular season game for the Cardinals.
Fitzgerald recalled on the Mina Kimes Show featuring Lenny how Arians changed the team schedule just for him.
Fitzgerald was to have his college number retired at Pitt and the ceremony was September 3, 2013, on the Tuesday before the first NFL game of the year.
Tuesdays are normally off days for players but that is once the season begins. The week leading up to the season opener there is a “bonus” practice on Thursday, as coaches like to call it.
“They day they were going to retire my number, we had practice on that day,” Fitzgerald. “This is not something I had ever done or ever would do, but it was a special occasion.”
He asked Arians if he could be excused from practice, explaining he had never done it before. Arians not only gave him his blessing, he made it so he didn’t even have to miss practice at all.
“‘Fitz, it’s a great honor,'” the star receiver explained Arians told him. “‘It doesn’t happen all the time. We’re going to give the guys the day off.’
“He flipped the schedule for me. It was something that made me really. really appreciate him. That was something that defined him with me. He didn’t have to do that. He’s a new coach. We didn’t have an established relationship at that point.”
Instead of a bonus practice, the Cardinals didn’t have practice at all that day and Fitz got to attend the ceremony and be there in Pittsburgh when his number was retired. More importantly, Arians cemented a critical relationship with the team’s most prominent player. And considering Arians was asking Fitzgerald to change positions and do things he had never done previously in his NFL career, this act surely made it easier for Fitzgerald to accept.
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