Fitzgerald graduates college as promise to mother

Arizona Cardinals wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald promised his mother before she died he'd become a college graduate, on Saturday he fulfilled that promise.

"I'm glad I can finally shake the 15-year college student stigma," Fitzgerald joked to John Weinfuss of ESPN.

Fitzgerald completed a communications degree with, appropriately, the University of Phoenix, after leaving the University of Pittsburgh following his sophomore season in the NFL.

Before she died of breast cancer in 2003, Carol Fitzgerald told her son, "Education is one thing nobody can ever take from you. I know you have a passion to play ball, but education is something you can carry for the rest of your life."

Completing his classes online from all over the globe, Fitzgerald became the last member of his family to complete a college degree, but it all came down to that conversation with his mother.

"I wanted to make sure I was doing what I promised her I'd do," Fitzgerald said.