Ray Armstead
Men's Track & Field Student-Athlete
Truman (1981-84)
Armstead played basketball at Northwest High School in St. Louis and didn't begin his track career until he was a senior.
He enrolled at Truman and earned All-America honors three times. Mr. Armstead was a three-time MIAA indoor champion in the 400 and held the conference record with a time of 48.03. He won the MIAA outdoor title three times in the 400, setting a conference record of 46.59. He established the school record in the 600 with a time of 1:08.69. He served as team captain three seasons.
At the 1984 Southeast Missouri State Pepsi Invitational, he qualified for the 400 at the summer Olympic trials. As an unknown at the trials, Armstead finished fourth in the finals of the 400, qualifying him for a spot on the 4x400 meter relay team in the Olympic games at Los Angeles.
Running the second leg in the relay with Sunder Nix, Alonzo Babers and Antonio McKay, he turned in a time of 43.97. The foursome won the gold in a time of 2:57.91, at the time the second-fastest time ever and the fastest ever at that altitude. Armstead is Truman's only Olympic gold medalist.
For the next four years, he competed professionally from Australia to Japan to Switzerland to Scandinavia. After barely missing qualification for the 1988 Olympics, he began a career as a financial analyst.
Armstead served as coordinator of the Torch Relay for the 1994 U.S. Olympic festival in the St. Louis area. The torch relay zigzagged from Kansas City to St. Louis, including such stops as Kirksville. Armstead's coaches at the university were the late Ken Gardner and Ed Schneider. Coach John Cochran also worked with him during the off-season and for the 1984 Olympic trials.