[align=center]Life of Reilly
Larry Fitzgerald Sr. has covered 28 Super Bowls as a reporter. This will be his toughest title-game assignment yet.
by Rick Reilly[/align]


It's been six years since Larry Fitzgerald's wife died, and yet when you call his house, it's her voice on the message machine.

"My sons asked me to keep it," says Fitzgerald, father of All-Galaxy wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald Jr., of the suddenly Super Bowl-bound Cardinals. "If they were having a tough day, they wanted to be able to call and hear her voice. It's comforting to them."

That's what makes his son's trip to Tampa bittersweet for him. Every year since 1981, the longtime Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder sportswriter has covered the Super Bowl. Beginning in 1983, his wife, Carol, joined him. "She loved the Commissioner's Party," he says.

Now he's going to be covering a Super Bowl in which their elder son is the most electrifying player in it. He's already broken Jerry Rice's record for receiving yards in a single postseason, and he's still got one game to go. So it's going to be murder for Larry Sr. not to violate that no-cheering-in-the-press-box rule.

"I won't cheer," Fitzgerald says. "I'm going to stay objective. I've come too far to suddenly show up in the press box with pompoms. But if you could put a monitor on my insides, you'd find a whole fan club in there."