Thanks for the Memories

Thanks for the memories: Armstrong has been U of M's athletic rock -- with a heart of gold -- for 46 years

By Geoff Calkins
Memphis Commercial Appeal
Thursday, November 6, 2008


It is a crisp, sunny day on the Memphis practice fields, and Murray Armstrong pulls up in his battered golf cart.

"Get in," he says.

Who could resist an invitation like that?

I get in.

Armstrong, 71, drives us across the bright, green fields.

"Looks good," I say.

"Sure does," he says. "It looks Cadillac now."

Armstrong wheels around, searching for imperfections. He stops to talk to one of his employees, Reggie Miller, about getting a new shipment of weed killer.

It is an utterly ordinary day in the life of a man who has been coming to work at the University of Memphis for 46 years. And it is utterly extraordinary, too.

Murray Armstrong has lung cancer. He's been battling it -- as only Armstrong could battle anything -- for more than four years.

On Oct. 6, the doctors transferred him to hospice care.

"What does it mean?" says Armstrong. "I'm worse."

Murray's eldest son, Sterritt, just shakes his head at this.

"It's what the doctors do," he says, "when they feel they've exhausted all treatment options."

* * *

Thirteen years ago, I moved to Memphis from another newspaper. I had never been to this city before my job interview.

It's an adjustment, writing a sports column in a new city, maybe even especially this city.

"You're not from Memphis," is something I heard a lot.

And I wasn't from Memphis. Worse, I was from the North.

So I was uncertain, as you might expect. I didn't know if it would work.

Then one day, on the Memphis football fields, a big, gruff older guy pulled up next to me in his golf cart.

"That was a heckuva column you wrote," he said.

I don't even remember what the column was about. But I remember feeling better, almost instantly. I remember thinking it would all be OK.

The guy in the golf cart was Armstrong, of course. He had gone out of his way to do something nice. He had taken the time to think about somebody else.

And if it's taken me a good long while to get to Armstrong's job description during his years over at Memphis, maybe it's because it's impossible to describe.

How do you describe 46 years of unyielding decency? How do you describe an entire career of everyday thoughtfulness?

Armstrong interviewed for a job at Memphis in 1962, a strapping, former Tennessee football player in need of work.

"What can you do?" said Spook Murphy, the Memphis football coach.

"Coach, I can do anything," Armstrong said. "I can kiss butt, I can shine shoes, I can do whatever you want me to do."

"You're hired!" said Murphy.

It was Armstrong's last real job interview.

"The more they found out I could do, the more I did," Armstrong said.

He coached the freshmen. He coached tennis. He served as academic adviser, and not just for the football team.

In 1967, Armstrong and his wife, Joan, moved into the athletic dorms to watch over everyone.

They raised their two boys in those dorms. They raised maybe a thousand other boys, as well.

These are not just empty words, either, the sort that people tend to say about any person who is ill.

Remember what it felt like going to college for the first time? Remember the gnawing fear?

"As a kid coming out of Illinois, I was scared out of my mind coming to Memphis State to walk on the football team," wrote JJ Hickson, in a blog set up for members of the Memphis community to communicate with Armstrong. "When I walked in the South Hall, you were the first person I saw and I felt at ease. You made me feel welcome and I knew everything would be all right."

The blog goes on like this for pages and pages. Go read it for yourself at collegetime.wordpress.com.

Dimitri Delgado: "Currently, I am a commander in the United States Coast Guard and perform international engagements in the world of anti-terrorism. I am what I am, in very large measure, because of who and what you are."

Derrick Burroughs: "Coach, I never told you, but if you have the opportunity to read this, you were the father I never had. Even though I grew up with eight sisters and one brother and none of us knew what it was like to have a father, for five years, I did."

Jeff Harrison: "Thank you so very much for all the wonderful things you did for me while I was a walk-on football player for the 1983-84 seasons. You treated the walk-ons with the same respect, compassion and toughness as the scholarship players."

This may be the most remarkable thing about the blog: The vast range of people who took the time to write.

Sure, DeAngelo Williams submitted an entry. But so did Bill Daniels, who played club handball. And Susan Day, who works in the ticket office. And Charlotte Peterson, who coached tennis. And Tim McCormack, who served as a trainer.

They wrote with humor and nostalgia, with little details that draw a picture of a man.

Jim Rapp: "I will never forget the Christmas I was allowed to stay in the dorm by myself to help with the Liberty Bowl. I woke up Christmas morning to find a small gift outside my door."

Mike Anderson: "I remember my first night in Memphis. It was freezing cold in the room and I arrived with only a razor-thin blanket. I was having problems getting adjusted from being away from home and cold when he opened the door for the nightly checks. Like a daddy, he recognized that I was cold and missing home. He closed the door and came back minutes later with a nice warm blanket."

Sherry Weaver Goad: "Do you remember in the early 1980s the parent who made a frantic 'mommy' phone call to you that there was an uncaged boa constrictor SNAKE in her son's room? You promised you wouldn't tell anybody AND that you would personally take care of the snake. If I remember correctly, you said, 'I will go up and machete the SOB to pieces.' All I know for sure is that he disappeared and you became my hero."

A football player named Steve King wrote about the time Armstrong made him a milkshake to help him keep his weight up. Dozens wrote about Armstrong banging through the halls in the morning, waking everyone up with the loud reminder that it was "College Time!"

It must have been painful, in those mornings. But now?

Stan Weaver: "I wish just one morning Coach Armstrong could wake up my son for college."

Which can't happen, of course, and not just because Armstrong is ill.

College football is an industry now. No coach works at a place for 46 years.

But if you think this notion depresses Armstrong, you've missed the whole point.

He understands that tomorrow's jobs won't necessarily look like yesterday's jobs. But somebody has to do them, right?

Somebody has to teach. Somebody has to make things go. So figure out what needs to be done and then go do that.

Do it every day, if possible. Do it with joy and kindness and thoughtfulness.

You might not get rich -- Armstrong never did -- but, well, you should have seen what happened before the Memphis-Southern Miss game.

Armstrong drove to the team hotel to organize the buses, just as he always does. He doesn't have the strength to sit through the games any longer, but he still has to see the buses off.

Only, this time, the players didn't walk straight onto the buses. They walked, in a line, over to Armstrong instead.

"Coach, we want to tell you that we love you and we want to thank you for what you've done for the university," said the first player. And then they did. Every player walked up to Armstrong. Every player shook his hand.

Maybe decency begets decency. Maybe that's the legacy of the man.

Some people spend their lives chasing success. Armstrong defined success a different way.

Not long ago, Armstrong tried to explain why he stayed at Memphis for all these years, why he didn't take a bigger job in a bigger place.

"It just seemed like when I got down there, everybody loved me," he said.

Yep, and still do.



Doing it all

Following are some of the jobs Murray Armstrong has held during his 46-plus years working at the University of Memphis:

Assistant freshman coach, Head freshman coach, Defensive end coach, Kicking coach, Special teams coach, Academic adviser, Administrative aide, Facilities coordinator (current)