Brooke Armistead, the greatest player in Austin Peay women’s basketball history, enters her third season as an assistant coach at her alma mater.
Tasked with the development of the Lady Govs guards, Armistead spent the 2012-13 season guiding the team’s young backcourt. That effort should bear fruit in 2013-14 as junior Kristen Stainback and sophomore Tiasha Gray are expected to make considerable contributions.
In her first season with the Lady Govs, Armistead mentored Whitney Hanley though her senior campaign. The partnership reaped immediate benefits with Hanley’s averaging 19.2 points per game – a seven-point per game improvement – and finishing the year ranked third among all OVC scorers. The bulk of that improvement came courtesy Hanley’s improved shooting touch that saw her make 44 percent of her attempts as a senior after shooting just 34.3 percent as a junior.
Armistead joined the Austin Peay coaching staff after working for the Tennessee Department of Child Services and in the insurance business since graduating in 2004. It is a return to a sport that has been her real passion and a sport she was so successful playing that her Lady Govs jersey number 10 was retired in 2004 – the first female in APSU athletics history to be accorded such an honor – and led to her being inducted into the APSU Athletics Hall of Fame in 2009.
Armistead hit the ground running in her first season as a full-time assistant coach last season and knows she will continue to be on the fast track as far as getting reacquainted to the college game from a coaching standpoint in her second season.
This is not Armistead’s first foray into coaching. She served as Lady Govs graduate assistant in 2004-05 when Austin Peay captured its fourth-straight OVC tournament championship.
Armistead left Austin Peay as the Lady Govs all-time leading scorer-second all-time in OVC history-while leading the Lady Govs to three-straight OVC tourney titles and NCAA tourney appearances. She was named first-team All-OVC for three straight years and earned OVC All-Tournament all four seasons.
As a senior, the Elmwood native averaged an OVC-leading 18.9 ppg to help lead the Lady Govs to a 27-4 record, including a league record 22 straight victories, and an unprecedented 16-0 conference mark. In the process, she was named OVC “Player of the Year” and OVC tournament “Most Valuable Player,” the second time she earned the award. She scored 30 points against North Carolina in the Lady Govs heartbreaking NCAA tourney loss.
In 2002-03, Armistead became the only OVC athlete in history to be named both the league’s “Female Athlete of the Year” and Steve Hamilton Award recipient in the same year. The Hamilton award annually is presented to an OVC male or female student-athlete who best exemplifies the characteristics of the late Morehead State student-athlete, coach and administrator Steve Hamilton.
She also earned APSU’s Joy Award as the most valuable senior female athlete while also being selected “Most Outstanding Female Athlete” as a senior.
Armistead finished her career with 2,508 points, and probably would have broken the OVC scoring record (2,526) if a head injury hadn’t forced her to miss three games during her senior season. She ended as the NCAA’s 29th all-time scoring leader and left as
APSU’s career leader in scoring, field goals, field goals attempted, free throws, free throws attempted and free-throw percentage.
Armistead graduated from Austin Peay as part of the most successful women’s basketball class. Along with fellow senior Paige Smith, she was a part of a school-record 78 career wins, bettering by 15 wins the previous mark.
After earning OVC “Freshman of the Year” in 1999-2000, Armistead was named to three consecutive first-team All-OVC squads. Along the way, she also was named all-tournament in all 10 tournaments (regular season and postseason) that named all-tournament squads, including four straight OVC all-tourney teams.
In addition to leaving as APSU’s all-time leading scorer – and the school’s overall all-time leading scorer – Armistead also owns the career mark for career scoring average (20.9 ppg).
In Spring 2003, Armistead also became the first OVC player to be drafted by the WNBA.
