RAMSEY: Armour, now a family man, returns to Manitou after a joyful journey

Justin Armour is home.

After 18 years of happy wandering, which included football stardom at Stanford and five seasons (one with the Broncos) in the NFL, Armour returned last summer to Manitou Springs, where he lives in a cozy house on a dirt road.

You might remember he built a mountain of success during his first stint in Manitou.

He led the Mustangs to the 1990 state football title with a season that ranks among the greatest in Colorado prep history, and he dominated in basketball, his favorite sport.

But that’s not all. He ranked as class valedictorian and served as student body president and school newspaper editor and homecoming king and ...

Now, he’s coaching the football team at his old school, and he’s consumed by the hassles and joys of his new job.

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Yet he wants to make it clear he did not return to this town on the side of a mountain obsessed with hopes of adding to his considerable sports glory.

“I moved back to Manitou for one reason only,” Armour says as he watches his 7-year-old son, Joah, and 4-year-old daughter, Avah, play in the sunshine.

“My kids.”

In the fall of 2008, Armour and his wife, Cara, were living in suburban San Diego, and enjoying life in America’s mainland paradise.

The sun was always shining. The beaches beckoned. But Armour sensed a crucial hole in his family’s life.

“It was fast,” Armour says. “And kind of shallow.”

A few days before Joah began kindergarten at Capri Elementary, Justin and Cara attended back-to-school night, and in a packed room Justin searched for someone, anyone, who was a friend.

He failed.                    

“I didn’t know one family,” Armour says. “And we were all supposed to be neighbors.”

At that instant, a happy thought entered Armour’s mind.

It was time to return to Manitou Springs.

Justin and Cara wanted their children to enjoy the ease and stability of a smaller town. Justin remembered “always having four or five moms” when he was a child.

“I couldn’t get away with anything,” he says, laughing. “There were always a lot of people supporting you, a lot of people cheering for you.”

He hasn’t been disappointed. Novelist Thomas Wolfe insisted “you can’t go home again,” but Wolfe never met Armour.

Armour, 37, sits at his kitchen table, enjoying slices of vegetarian pizza while he considers his journey to where he began.

Excuse him if he sounds similar to Dorothy from “The Wizard of Oz.” He’s seen much of America, and enjoyed a grand time during the tour.

Yet for him, there’s no place like Manitou.

“I guess it’s just that everyone knows your name thing,” Armour says. “I can literally call 20 people right now and say I need immediate help, and they’d jump to help and I would do the same. It’s just that, and it’s awesome.”

Tonight at Florence, Armour again directs his hometown team as he begins the second chapter of his Manitou football life.

He knows many cherish the first chapter. Armour led Manitou to the 1990 3A state title with a mind-boggling performance.

He rushed for 27 touchdowns, passed for 25 touchdowns, rushed for 1,320 yards and passed for 2,103 yards. In his career, he collected 8,119 passing and rushing yards, 124 touchdowns and fumbled only twice. He moved to wide receiver at Stanford, where he caught 154 passes for 2,482 yards. He finished his career with 64 catches and seven touchdowns in the NFL.

His staggering Manitou numbers lead to a potentially troubling question:

Can Armour, the coach, ever top Armour, the star?

The answer is easy.

He won’t even try.

“I know we all have egos, but my ego has been padded just fine,” Armour says. “I don’t feel I need to go out and prove anything.

“Football is just a game. We’re not out there transplanting hearts or anything. I want to have a lot of fun, and football is fun when you have a little success at it.”

Don’t let him fool you. Armour is itching to beat Florence, and everyone else. He remembers the last time he visited Florence. It was 1987 and he was a freshman and he was running a sweep.

He ran out-of-bounds, got hit from behind and crashed into a chain-link fence. His hand became entangled in the fence.

“And this happened,” he says, holding up his left hand to reveal a ring finger missing at least a quarter inch. He was taken from the field in an ambulance.

Taking on this job stirred many memories and emotions. Since his departure from the NFL in 1999, Armour watched his once-overwhelming competitive urge subside. He had been a football player, but now he was a husband and father.

"Taking on this job ignited that old urge to compete, to win,” he says.

Still, he’s careful with the fire.

As Armour works at Manitou’s practice field, which features a sweeping view of Pikes Peak above and Colorado Springs below, he shouts only when impressed by a player’s effort.
When not impressed, he pulls the player aside for quiet, private talk. Armour learned this approach from Bill Walsh, his coach at Stanford.

“Coach only raises his voice after we’ve done something right,” quarterback Sam Schultz says.

Armour’s instruction carries weight for Schultz and his teammates. Schultz has heard about Armour’s football exploits for much of his life. He knows about the state title and all those wins and yards.

Schultz is inspired, not intimidated, by Armour’s past.

“He shows what can happen at Manitou,” Schultz says. “We want to try to do what he did.”

Repeating the past is a grueling assignment, especially if you’re Justin Armour.

On Tuesday, Armour is exhausted as he relaxes in his dining room. He admits he wasn’t prepared for the vast amount of details of life as a head coach and he’s concerned about Florence’s size and experience and August is awfully early for a football game.

Yet he’s thrilled to be home, where he’s surrounded by old and new friends.

He smiles as he thinks back to a recent bedtime talk with Joah. He could tell his son was troubled.

“What’s wrong?” Justin asked.

“We’re not moving are we?”

“No, no, son,” Justin answered. “We’re staying here. This is home.”

“That’s good. I like it here. I really like it here”

So does Joah’s dad.

For more on Armour and Manitou football: http://daveramseysez.freedomblogging.com/