Candian Press: Raptor's Analyst Jack Armstrong Lives the "Best of Both Worlds"

Athens, GA (Mar 25, 2008) - Ken Fang, who runs the "Fang's Bites" Sports blog (also chock full of Amazing Race content), is one of my must read web sites from my RSS reader. Yes, it is always nice when he links to content on this site, but I also find he does a great job of distilling sports content from around North America, and summarizing it every day, sometimes two and three times a day. Given the often times hectic work and travel schedule I face deploying email, collaboration and instant messaging infrastructures, conducting readiness assessments, and providing technology audit services for my customers (yes I have a day job), Ken provides a thorough distillation of content. This allows me to pick up on items that I may sometimes miss, and that I want to follow up on.

Today is one of those days, as he links to a Canadian Press profile of former Niagara University Men's Basketball Coach, and current radio color analyst for the Toronto Raptors, Jack Armstrong (pictured left). Armstrong, when hired by Niagara, was then the youngest coach in Division I basketball. He compiled a less than spectacular 100-154 (0.394) record from 1989-1998 (including a 23-7 record in the 1992-93 season).

So off he went into broadcasting as a basketball analyst for the Toronto Raptors, and is also working regular season NCAA Men's Basketball and NIT game broadcasts for ESPN. You may not have heard Armstrong on the radio or TV, but you might be interested in reading the piece by The Canadian Press for a look at broadcast talent north of the border. Well actually, talent that WORKS north of the border as Armstrong and his family still live in Lewiston, NY, which is spitting distance from the Canadian border.

And Now Some Related Trivia

Armstrong was cutting his coaching teeth with the Freshman team at Fordham University at the same time that CBS Sports Senior VP of Communications LeslieAnne Wade was cutting her sports information teeth at Fordham at the same time. In a January 2008 conversation with Eye on Sports Media, Wade said considers Armstrong to be a good friend and a "great guy."...Current University of Georgia Assistant Men's Basketball Coach Desmond Oliver got his start as an assistant with Armstrong at Niagara from 1994-1997...One of the reasons you will not find Rogers Sportsnet talent profiles on this site is because there is low confidence that they really are accurate, as mistakes of fact and description were found in Armstrong's biography on that site some months ago. Their webmaster fixed some of it, but not all, so unless we have confidence that any of the other biographies are accurate, they just will not be found here.