Running Celebrity

Jack Armstrong

It’s late August, deep into what should be the dog days of the basketball calendar, but long-time broadcaster Jack Armstrong continues to maintain a brisk pace. Two months prior, his trademark Brooklyn accent narrated the Toronto Raptors’ historic run to their first-ever nba championship. However, a season like no other has given way to an offseason like no other, and this day is already shaping up to be a busy one.

Before meeting a friend for a round of golf, the 56-year-old intends to go for a run near his home in Lewiston, New York. Today, Armstrong will tally a quick three miles. He runs upward of six days a week, and he’ll “keep doing it as long as I can do it,” he tells Canadian Running Magazine. “I have that love affair with it.”

As the primary game analyst for Raptors broadcasts on tsn, Armstrong’s line of work shouldn’t be conducive to maintaining a rigorous running regimen. The average Raptors season begins in mid-October and spans until April, May or June depending on the team’s postseason fortunes. Although not as taxing as baseball’s gruelling 162-game slog, the 82-game basketball season is still a marathon in its own right. Late nights at the arena, meals on the road and cross-country f lights come with the territory. Nevertheless, Armstrong finds a way to get his miles in, home or away, rain or shine.

One begins to wonder if it’s less a matter of choice than necessity. On air, Armstrong is tasked with being a deep well of basketball knowledge, a human encyclopedia. Running lets him unplug before being transmitted live to millions of televisions across Canada. “It gives you that opportunity to clear your head and get ready for your game that night,” he says.

Or put another way: “It gives you your sanity.”

Af t er 21 se a sons i n broadc a st i ng , Armstrong has his routine down pat. He and his wife, Dena, live 130 kilometres south of Toronto, directly across from Queenston, Ont. on the American side of the border. “I live right on the [Niagara] River. My backyard is Canada,” Armstrong says, “so my morning run is right on the river and I look at Canada the whole time.”

When the Raptors play at home, he leaves Lewiston around 1 p.m. ahead of the typical 7 or 7:30 p.m. tip-off at Scotiabank Arena. Armstrong usually drives back home to Lewiston the same night, but when he does stay in Toronto, his hotel is only steps away from Toronto’s network of waterfront trails. “I’ve fallen in love with that, running along Lake Ontario, looking out on Toronto Islands,” he says. “It’s breathtaking.”

Armstrong doesn’t miss a beat when the team jets off to far-f lung basketball outposts like Orlando, Phoenix and Portland. “When I travel with the Raptors, I am pretty committed to it,” he says. “Everyone I travel with knows. They’ll see me coming into the hotel lobby and it means I’m either going out for a run or coming in from a run. I don’t think there’s a day I missed running during that whole playoff run.”

For instance, while the Raptors were taking advantage of the Golden State Warriors’ litany of untimely injuries during the nba Finals, Armstrong was taking advantage of San Francisco’s spectacular scenery, relishing daily runs out to the Golden Gate or Bay Bridge.

Doug Smith, the Toronto Star’s veteran basketball writer and one of the few people who have been on the Raptors beat longer than Armstrong, professes his amazement at his colleague’s commitment, particularly after a late night of “being social,” as Smith puts it. “I guess it’s as they say: The greats play hurt,” he says.

Actually, apart from the mental grind of life as a broadcaster, Armstrong has been fortunate to avoid injury. Still, he recognizes

the risks that come with the sport, especially since he usually runs solo. For that reason, he wears an ID bracelet engraved with emergency contact information. Just in case.

Beyond the practicality of the accessory, his bracelet features a small customized message, a personal f lair that underscores Armstrong’s approach to life. The mantra he’s chosen is “the joy is in the journey.” And what a journey it’s been. Armstrong didn’t run track or crosscountry growing up – “My sports were basketball and baseball,” he says – but he came to know running through a coaching career that included stops at Brooklyn’s Nazareth High School, Fordham University and finally Niagara University. “I got into it a little bit then because some of the guys I worked with were runners and, you know, I’m a young coach, so I went out and ran with my players.”

From there, he began to take his preparation seriously. “A few of my coaching friends had run marathons,” Armstrong recalls. “They gave me information on it and training regimens and all that .” He f inally took the plunge himself in 1995, entering the New York City Marathon. He’s run seven marathons so far.

Armstrong admits he’s never broken the four-hour threshold, making outright qualification for some of the more elite races next to impossible. He credits running the 2001 Boston Marathon to a timely suggestion from friends in local law enforcement. “I ran as a Boston policeman,” says Armstrong. “I wore the Boston Police hat, the Boston Police T-shirt, and I went out on the bus with the policemen out to the start line.” Running as charity entrant, Armstrong, then 38, finished in 4:26:47. He deployed a similar strategy for races in his native New York City, teaming up friends on the nypd. “You know, when you’re Irish, you know a lot of cops,” he laughs.

Since running Boston, Armstrong’s focus has shifted to shorter-distance events. He estimates he’s run about a dozen half marathons and countless 10ks and 5ks. He hasn’t ruled out a return to the full marathon, but his schedule does make proper preparation a challenge.

Ultimately, the f inishing times don’t matter much to him. After all, the joy is in the journey. Although he’s worked in and around competitive sports his entire adult life, Armstrong prefers to think of running through more of a spiritual lens.

“We’ve all been to races where we’ve seen people finishing in wheelchairs, people who run their first race and it takes, six, seven hours, and you’re there clapping for them and cheering for them. It’s an incredible accomplishment,” he says. “It’s a celebration of being alive.”