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The legacy of Jerry Armstrong
By News-Press NOW

FEB 7, 2021 Updated 8 HRS AGO

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Not every kid from North Harrison High School gets portrayed in a Hollywood movie.

In these parts, Jerry Armstrong might be remembered for leading North Harrison to the 1962 state championship basketball game. He went on to win more than 300 games as a coach at Trenton, King City and other Missouri high schools. He was inducted into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame in 2016.

The rest of the country would associate Armstrong with the swagger played by actor Austin Nichols in “Glory Road,” a movie about Texas Western’s 1966 NCAA championship team. One scene shows the actor introducing himself as “Jerry Armstrong, Eagleville, Missouri, all-state, 19 boards a game” before shooting an apple core into a wastebasket.

Who knows if it happened like that, but the scene got one thing right. Armstrong was white and other players seated at the table were not.

The North Harrison star played his college ball at Texas Western (now the University of Texas-El Paso), where he was part of a history-making team long before there was something called March Madness. Black players made up the entire starting lineup for Texas Western, the first time that had ever happened in an NCAA championship game.

The Miners went on to upset Kentucky, whose fans waved a Confederate flag during the game. Armstrong never played in the championship, despite being a key contributor and seeing action in 24 games during his senior season.

Black players, seven in all, were on the floor for the entire 40 minutes of that victory over Kentucky, an all-white team that included future NBA coach Pat Riley. At the height of the Civil Rights movement, Texas Western Coach Don Haskins elected to send a message and dismantle the myth that at least one white player was needed to win at the highest levels of college basketball.

Armstrong, forced to sit out the biggest game of his life, displayed a selflessness and grace that was far removed from the cockiness depicted in that movie. In an interview later in life, Armstrong recalled a conversation with Haskins after “Glory Road” was released.

“I said, ‘Well, coach, you know I wanted to play. And I felt like I could play,” Armstrong told the interviewer. “But helping Blacks all over the Southeast break the color barrier in college basketball, that was a good thing. I was glad to have been part of history.”

Armstrong, 76, died Thursday at a time when race relations remain a flashpoint in this country. Perhaps his greatest legacy was in understanding that he didn’t need to shout the loudest in order to make a statement. The kid from North Harrison didn’t take the floor, even though he wanted to, and he became part of something bigger than himself.

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