MIKE ARMENTROUT
Football, 1981-84
Inducted February 6, 1999
Mike Armentrout was a premier performer in the defensive secondary for the SMS football Bears, starting and lettering four years in a row from the 1981 season through the 1984 campaign in a career which spanned the end of the Bears’ NCAA Division II days and the start of SMS participation in the Mid-Continent Conference at the I-AA level. Armentrout came to SMS from Elgin, Ill., and started 37 of the 42 SMS games in which he played over his four seasons. Playing for SMS head coach Rich Johanningmeier, Armentrout helped SMS to winning records in 1983 and 1984 in only the Bears’ second and third seasons competing at the I-AA level. The Bears finished second in the league in 1983 and Armentrout served as a team co-captain on a ballclub which was 6-3-1 his senior season. Armentrout was voted a Mid-Continent all-conference first team selection each of his last three seasons, and he was also on the Mid-Continent academic all-conference team three years in a row. He was selected to the Associated Press I-AA All-America honorable mention list in 1983 and received All-America honorable mention from The Sporting News in 1984. Armentrout was also a second team CoSIDA Academic All-America selection in 1984. On the field, Armentrout intercepted five passes over the last three games of his junior season in 1983 to finish with 10 interceptions for the season. That total established SMS and Mid-Continent single season records and was also the best mark of any I-AA player in the nation, giving SMS its first individual national statistical leader in football. Armentrout also had three fumble recoveries in one game in 1983 and led SMS in that department for the season. He led SMS in interceptions again in 1984 on his way to a career school record total of 18. He was the team’s primary punt returner each of last three seasons and was also among the team leaders in total tackles each year, finishing with career totals of 302 tackles, 18 passes broken up and seven recoveries. Armentrout was voted the SMS Coors Player of the Year for the 1983 season and he was selected for an NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship at the time he received his undergraduate degree from SMS in 1984.
