Former United States General Norman Schwarzkopf will be in attendance during Sunday's NFC Championship Game at University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, AZ, to watch Arizona Cardinals' wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald attempt to advance to his first Super Bowl.
The unlikely friendship began several years ago as both are graduates of Valley Forge Military Academy in Wayne, PA.
The two met in 2001, at an alumni and current student function, while Fitzgerald was attending Valley Forge. Fitzgerald had always wanted to meet the general whose action figure he regularly played with as a child growing up in Minnesota.
Schwarzkopf had long been a football fan and some have speculated that had he not been a five-star general that he would have pursued an NFL career. Stormin' Normin soon became the receiver's personal trainer, pushing the player to the extremes to make it to the NFL.
"Workout sessions were extreme. They would last ten hours a day and I would be mentally and physically exhausted afterwards," said Fitzgerald.
The 2002 VFMA graduate quickly soured on the general's methods claiming that some training sessions "did not make any sense." The general would force the player to practice firing a rifle or cleaning the showers with dental floss. This would seldom be followed by sprints and running pass routes.
Learning to operate tanks, hummers, half-tracks and jeeps (both windshield folded up and down) were all a common part of practice. Fitzgerald began to second guess the Gulf War hero's methods after running routes on a field containing live, submerged land mines. The University of Pittsburgh-bound player had seen enough.
"The NFL is tough and I was trying to prepare him to be a soldier of football. Eight times a season he is asked to invade another NFL stadium," said Schwarzkopf. "And that doesn't include playoffs."
"It was just weird. I mean I didn't see the relevance of grenades to football. At first I thought it was a Mr Miyagi/Karate Kid-type thing where I was unknowingly learning relevant skills. That, however, wasn't the case. I had to fire him. Can you imagine firing Schwarzkopf?" said Fitzgerald.
So fearful of the general was the wide receiver that he kept him as his trainer for another two months. The entire training relationship lasted two months and two weeks and was abruptly terminated by way of phone call from former Secretary of State Colin Powell (Fitzgerald,through VFMA connections, pleaded with Powell to carry out the firing).
"I've never been fired from anything in my life," said Schwarzkopf. "It took me a long time to get over [the firing]. My initial reaction was to get into a tank, but I didn't. I wished the kid all the best."
The two reconnected in the summer of 2008 after not speaking for almost six years. The general attended two Cardinals games this season and took in several team practices despite calling them "devoid of military tactics."
"He's the best receiver in the NFL ... and I'd like to think I had a little something to do with that," said an emotional general.
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