Formerly unhoused basketball player gives speech he'll never forget

Long Beach athlete honored in Arizona

Jeremiah Armstead, a student-athlete at Fisk University, was in Arizona to give a speech and receive an honorary plaque for his remarkable story of him going from homeless to becoming a college basketball player.

This time last week was the NCAA championship. Before the big college basketball game a student-athlete out of Long Beach got an award for courage. Jeremiah Armstead is sophomore at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee.

The 6-foot-5 basketball player is the first student from an HBCU to receive the Perry Wallace Most Courageous Award from the Basketball Writers Association.

Armstead made the trek to Arizona for NCAA weekend from Nashville. For his guest, he invited his little brother Marcus Armstead. He gave a speech and received a plaque.

Armstead is a story of resilience. He, his mother, brother and sister had been unhoused off and on for four years, sometimes living in their car or shelters. He only took up organized basketball in his senior year while attending Long Beach Polytechnic High School.

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Ahead of the speech and during spring break, Armstead flew back to Los Angeles to see his siblings appear in a school musical. Marcus sings and little sister Armani Chanel Eason is a rapper.

At that time, he was also honored before the Long Beach City Council. In attendance were members of the community and the nonprofit that have helped to lift up his family, and get him into Fisk. The nonprofit, Interval House, most recently stepped up and worked to get his mother and siblings into housing.

The musical was titled "A Will To Rise Up." Robert Daniels of the Do Good Daniels Foundation is a producer and cast Marcus and Armani. Armstead beamed with pride as he sat with his mother and watched every showing of the musical.

"I get to experience their gifts," he said.