The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
NAIA player shows what perseverance can do
Once homeless, he’ll be honored at Final Four.
NASHVILLE — Jeremiah Armstead moved around so much he wasn’t even eligible to play high school basketball until his senior year.
He never lost faith through all the nights his family slept in their car when they couldn’t get a hotel room or into a shelter. Especially that first night at a beach parking lot after leaving Philadelphia for California. A police officer saw their car in lot with “No Parking Allowed After Midnight” signs and noticed a family of trying to sleep.
“He let us stay there,” Armstead said. “So just encounters like that with, like, everyday good people, it just helped me to not be mad at the world and what I got going on and just wait, which I did. I waited four or five years, and now it’s something finally changing.”
Monday, Armstead, a backup forward at NAIA Fisk University in Nashville, will make history as the first player from a historically Black college or university or NAIA school to receive the Perry Wallace Most Courageous Award from the U.S. Basketball Writers Association. The ceremony is a few hours before the national title game.
“I don’t think it’ll sink in fully until I get there to the Final Four and experience everything,” Armstead said of the award, named for a Nashville native who made history as the first Black to play basketball in the SEC, at Vanderbilt.
His coach, former Georgia Tech star Kenny Anderson,
marvels at Armstead. Anderson played 14 NBA seasons after being the No. 2 pick in the 1991 draft. But his family was evicted from their home in Queens, New York, when he was a high school junior.
“It’s satisfying for me to know that I’m helping someone that’s been in a situation like me,” Anderson said. “So Jeremiah, he’s doing a hell of a job just with his family, the situation. And he’s just a good kid.”
Armstead was born in Atlanta and lived in Philadelphia until his mother moved to Long Beach, California, to live with someone close enough to count as family. But that woman unexpectedly moved to Texas, leaving Mindy Brooks and her three children stranded. They stayed in a hotel for a few weeks, then wound up in a shelter in Santa Monica. His mother drove him to Long Beach Poly High, a 40-minute trip one way so she waited in a parking lot for classes to end to save gas and money.
Shelter time limits also forced them to move around, making even practicing basketball a challenge for a family focused first on surviving. They finally got some stability for his senior year, living in an apartment during his first semester and into the second. That gave Armstead time to improve his game.
“I could just wake up, go to school, catch the bus and everything,” Armstead said. “I didn’t have to worry about my mom waiting outside in the car all day or anything like that. So the mental fatigue was kind of wearing off.”
Armstead was connected to Fisk through the We Educate Brilliant Minds foundation, based in Los Angeles.
Once Armstead arrived in Nashville, a school official learned he was sending what he could to help his family. But that wasn’t enough as his family had to keep moving, even back to the car. In November, his mother, sister and brother finally moved into an apartment.
Anderson has helped Armstead develop his basketball skills. He played seven games as a freshman and 12 this season.
Armstead turned 20 on March 26, an age he never envisioned reaching.
“It showed me why ... I should keep doing what I’m doing and keep having faith in God because a few years ago I didn’t think I was going to be here — and I’m here,” Armstead said.