Larry, and his twin sister, Donna, were born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1943, but the family moved to Detroit shortly thereafter. A second move, when Larry was ten, brought them to Ormond-by-the-Sea, FL, to manage The Red Arrow Motel, built by his grandparents in the mid–fifties.

As a youth, Larry excelled in all sports. Then in ’59 and ’61, he played on two Seabreeze HS, Class A Championship basketball teams, and again, in ’61, added a Class A Championship in football. He was voted the top athlete in Seabreeze HS and Volusia County in 1962. Many decades later, he was voted to the list of the best 100 (then 35) Florida HS football players in the last 100 years by Florida sportswriters and coaches.

Although Larry was offered two pro baseball contracts as a catcher in his senior HS year, (with a $5,000 signing bonus per team), he opped instead to play football for the Gators in 1962. (He even had twelve basketball schlorship offers). He was an All-SEC guard in 1964 and 65, and later became a first-team, Gator All-American football player in 1965, who got drafted in the second round by the Steelers and in the fifth round by the Miami Dolphins. He started as a Steeler rookie and played three more years at that left guard position until an automobile accident upended his career in 1970. He notched an extra year with the KC Chiefs in 72 and finished his career in WFL in ’74 and ’75 with the Jacksonville franchises.

Larry always knew he had visual, artistic yearnings, but they always seemed to play second–fiddle to his athleticism. But collage art courses brought this latent desire to surface. An Advertising Design Degree from Florida in 1967, led to a more permanent, painterly approach. Larry has widely exhibited in all the major Florida Sidewalk Art Festivals (receiving numerous prizes and awards), had several one-man shows, and is included in the Cade Museum’s permanent art collection. He’s had numerous articles written and done TV interviews, seemingly all stressing how he marries his athleticism with his artistic images. His subject manner has taken a decided activist turn in the last decade. Plus, he has created a venue that renews of our Christian faith by changing road signs into Christian prompts (SignsSublime and Flee2THEEstrategy). These visuals can be presented by him to Christian audiences and are available in thumbnail form. Larry also has created  a side of sculpture using glass block, featured on CenterStageGlass.com

His autobiography, Dancing in the Shadows, emphasis the lighter side of his being an athlete artist–Christian. Chances are you’ll no doubt see a representative portion of yourself in a reading, since Larry hasn’t let any past notoriety go to his head. He’s still a pretty regular dude–according to him, anyway. Does that merit an “Amen” from any of the present viewers? Yes, I think I hear his wife, Doris, seconding the motion.

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