Chadron State College Athletics

The venerable Ross O. Armstrong had many achievements during his more than 50 years at Chadron State College.  One of them was founding the Athletic Hall of Fame in 1983.
Armstrong was a graduate of the University of Iowa where he played football and basketball. After coaching in high schools in Montana and Iowa, he came to Chadron State in 1933 to establish a Physical Education Department and to serve as an assistant coach.
He became the head basketball coach in 1935 and coached the sport through the 1949-50 season. His basketball teams won 157 games and lost 76. During a three-year stretch just prior to World War II, his teams went 16-4, 15-3 and 17-4. The latter team (1941-42) represented Nebraska at the NAIA National Tournament. The first year after the war, with most of the same players in the lineup, the Eagles were 17-1 under Armstrong’s guidance.
He became of head football coach in 1938 and directed that sport through the 1952 season. His greatest success as a football coach came in the late 1940s, when three of his teams compiled a 21-5 record. Two of them tied for conference championships.
Armstrong served as the college’s athletic director 1937-70, stepping down due to state-mandated age requirements for administrators. He also served as executive director of the Chadron State Foundation from its founding in the early 1960s until his death in January 1990 at age 84.
In addition, Armstrong was chairman of NAIA District 11, made up of about a dozen Nebraska colleges, for 12 years. He was inducted into the NAIA Hall of Fame in 1965, received Chadron State’s Distinguished Service Award in 1982 and was inducted posthumously into the Nebraska Football Hall of Fame in 1991.
It’s possible that no one ever associated with Chadron State was more widely known or had more friends than Ross Armstrong. He and his wife, Ruby, had been married for more than 50 years when she died in 1984. They had two sons, including Bob, who is also in the CSC Hall of Fame.