It looks like Arizona Cardinals All-Pro WR Larry Fitzgerald will have to make some room on an already crowded award shelf for one more piece of hardware. Pro Football Weekly will be announcing in this week's paper that Fitzgerald will be the recipient of the 14th annual Arthur S. Arkush Humanitarian Award, an honor bestowed upon a NFL player for outstanding charitable improvements to their community.
While this news shouldn't be shocking to any Arizona sports fan who's come to know Fitz over the years, he did beat out some worthy competition in the forms of finalists Matt Birk (Ravens' center), Thomas Davis (Panthers' linebacker), Davin Joseph (Buccaneers' guard) and Matt Schaub (Texans' quarterback).
Among his many off-field contributions, the 28-year-old wide out has set up the Larry Fitzgerald First Down Fund for summer activities for kids, traveled to Africa multiple times on humanitarian missions alongside former Cardinal Anquan Boldin and established the Carol Fitzgerald Memorial Fund, which offers support to a number of causes which Fitzgerald's late mother held dear.
Pro Football Weekly also went out of their way to applaud Fitzgerald through the connections he's formed with his fan base through Twitter and Facebook. Through this enormous following, Fitzgerald has created "Gimme 5 Fridays with Fitz" in which he asks Twitter to text "hand" to 50555 for a $5 donation to the Phoenix Children's Hospital.
It's news like this that makes you wonder how any man has the time to do all of the above while also maintaining such an elite level of play. Oh yeah, Fitz also manages to free up some space to mentor the NFL's budding wide receivers on the correct way to play the position. Let's just hope those lucky athletes also learn a thing or two about how to be an outstanding human being along with the proper practice of a route tree.