Legend.
It’s probably a term that gets thrown around a little too liberally in modern sports. Everybody wants to talk about who’s the greatest, what’s the best, and operate at the extremes when it comes to player performance, impact, and standing within a team or sport. I don’t even remember hearing the term GOAT until it became part of the LeBron James campaign.
Every now and then, though, you come across someone who truly defines what greatness looks like. Larry Fitzgerald is one of those people.
After 17 seasons with the Arizona Cardinals, Fitzgerald received his gold jacket, saw his bust unveiled, and officially joined the pantheon of NFL greats in Canton, Ohio, this weekend.
As he stood at the podium delivering his speech and talking about the importance of loyalty, there was one person in the crowd who understood exactly what that means to the city of Phoenix and the state of Arizona. Devin Booker was there, taking it all in and supporting someone who, like himself and Diana Taurasi, has dedicated an entire career to Arizona.
“It’s Larry the Legend, man,” Devin Booker told PHNX Cardinals’ Bo Brack. “We knew it was all coming, especially our people back at home. He’s embraced me and took me in since day one. He’s been the guy that I followed in the city. He’s done everything the right way.”
“He means so much to the state of Arizona and to football,” Booker told AZ Family’s Mark McClune. “I had to be here.”
As I sat there watching Fitzgerald’s induction speech, I was reminded of the feeling that loyalty can create. Larry was ours. Nobody else’s. Every professional memory we have of him happened in a Cardinals uniform. And as he stood there in that gold jacket, you weren’t thinking about contracts, free agency, or all of the moments during his career when his future might have been uncertain. You were thinking about how special it was to have him represent this team, this city, and this state on a national stage.
Nobody did it like Larry. At a time when wide receivers were becoming increasingly defined by ego and theatrics, Fitzgerald was the opposite. He didn’t play the game for attention. He played for his teammates, and that’s something we always respected about him.
The other thing I thought about while watching him up there was how few truly great Cardinals there have been. There isn’t a long lineage of players who dominated the sport, nor are there countless seminal moments to pull from. The Cardinals are an organization that has consistently failed throughout my lifetime. There have been a few fleeting moments, a couple of runs that got you excited, but sustained hope has rarely existed within the confines of this franchise.
That’s part of what makes what Devin Booker is doing more impressive. The Phoenix Suns have never reached the pinnacle, but they have experienced success. They have a long lineage of high-quality players, high-pressure games, and moments we can look back on, even if many of them ended in misery. At least they were there.
It’s a question you always have to ask yourself. Would you rather get close and fall short, or never get close at all? For those of us who are fans of both the Phoenix Suns and Arizona Cardinals, we’ve experienced both sides of that equation. Granted, the Cardinals came closer to a championship than either franchise ever has in a game I will never rewatch against the Pittsburgh Steelers in Super Bowl XLIII. Sustained success, though, has never been something they’ve enjoyed.
I know there are questions about Devin Booker’s standing in the realm of stardom, whether he can provide the value expected relative to the contract he’s been given, and whether this team can ultimately win a championship with him on it. Those are fair conversations to have. But there is one thing I will always appreciate and one thing that remains clear. Booker has been loyal in a sport that increasingly discourages loyalty, both from the players and through the way the tax aprons are structured.
So while there may be moments of frustration along the way, when you take a step back and look at the bigger picture, there is something special and increasingly rare about that kind of loyalty. And it’s something worth appreciating.
Maybe Booker never gets the gold jacket moment Fitzgerald received this weekend. Basketball legacies are measured differently, and there is still plenty left to determine about his. But loyalty has already become part of the story. Years from now, the contracts and cap percentages will fade into the background. What will remain are the memories, and the fact that every one of them happened here. Fitzgerald reminded us how meaningful that can become. Booker is still writing his version of it.
