Mickey Fitzgerald (born April 10, 1957 in

Lynchburg, Virginia Lynchburg is an independent city (United States), independent city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. First settled in 1757 by ferry owner John Lynch (1740–1820), John Lynch, the city's populati ...

) is a former American football player. He is the oldest of his three brothers. In 2002 Mickey was inducted into the

Virginia Tech Sports Hall of Fame The Virginia Tech Sports Hall of Fame was established in 1982 to honor and preserve the memory of athletes, coaches, administrators and staff members who have made outstanding contributions to athletics at Virginia Tech. A total of 211 individuals ...

and in 2007, inducted in the Central Virginia Hall of Fame He played on the active roster in the NFL with the Atlanta Falcons and Philadelphia Eagles in 1981.

Personal life

Mickey Fitzgerald was raised in a Catholic orphanage after his mother witnessed her lover getting shot, which made her felt that she isn't any good at parenting. During his day in the orphanage, Mickey hid in the corner most of the time, Mickey recalls that the Nuns had a love of smacking kids with rulers. He was lucky that a priest named Father Paul took care of him and the others, taking them to ball games and dedicating his time to the kids. It was during this time that he met his lifelong friend, Jim Lucy, fellow fullback at E.C. Glass High School. After two years in the orphanage, his grandmother took him and his siblings home. At home, Mickey started high school at

E. C. Glass High School E. C. Glass High School is a public school in Lynchburg, Virginia. It was founded in 1871 as Lynchburg High School and was named for long-time Superintendent of Public Schools in Lynchburg, Edward Christian Glass. Academics E. C. Glass offers ...

playing

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

. He was great at football, that he got many scholarships, which landed him at Virginia Tech.

Sports and After

Mickey Fitzgerald played

fullback Fullback or Full back may refer to: Sports * A position in various kinds of football, including: ** Full-back (association football), in association football (soccer), a defender playing in a wide position ** Fullback (gridiron football), in Americ ...

for the

Atlanta Falcons The Atlanta Falcons are a professional American football team based in Atlanta. The Falcons compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) South division. The Falcons joined th ...

in 1981, but due to a knee injury during the preseason, he moved to the Philadelphia Eagles. After leaving the Philadelphia Eagles, Mickey Fitzgerald played for the Memphis Showboats for a few seasons. Due to his injuries, he left his football career and moved into real estate and was also a

sumo wrestler A , or, more colloquially, , is a professional sumo wrestler. follow and live by the centuries-old rules of the sumo profession, with most coming from Japan, the only country where sumo is practiced professionally. Participation in official ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

. Years after his career, Fitzgerald had a son of his own named Nicholas "Austin Edward Memphis" Fitzgerald.

References

Living people American football running backs Virginia Tech Hokies football players 1957 births Players of American football from Lynchburg, Virginia {{runningback-1950s-stub