Desmond Armstrong

Youth

Up until age 11, basketball was Armstrong's main sport. After an altercation with another boy on the basketball court, the boy's father, who was a youth soccer coach, invited Armstrong to come try out for his team. From that point on Armstrong moved into high school, college, and national team soccer. Armstrong's college career was spent at the University of Maryland, where he was first team All ACC in 1984 and 1985 and second team All ACC in 1983. He played in a total of 78 games for the university, tallying 24 goals and 18 assists. In 1986, he was part of the Fairfax Spartans club which won the National Amateur Cup, defeating St. Louis Busch 3–0. The Spartans featured other national team players John Kerr, Bruce Murray, and John Stollmeyer in addition to Armstrong.

Professional

Armstrong played two seasons for the Cleveland Force of the Major Indoor Soccer League (MISL) from 1986 to 1988. At the end of the 1987–1988 season, he transferred to the Baltimore Blast. However, on January 14, 1989, he broke his leg midway through the season. In February 1991, he signed with Santos of the Brazilian First Division making Armstrong the first American player ever to sign a professional contract in Brazil. Upon completing the season Armstrong returned to the U.S. with the Maryland Bays, in the American Professional Soccer League. That year, the Bays made it to the league semifinals before falling to the Albany Capitals. In 1995, he moved to the…

Armstrong's sons, Ezra and Dida, are also professional soccer players. in May 2026, Armstrong converted to Eastern Orthodoxy.

Desmond Kevin Armstrong was born on November 2, 1964, in Washington, D.C.. His family first lived in a mainly Black neighborhood in Hyattsville, Maryland. His family then moved to Wheaton, Md., a mainly White town, where they lived next to a family of which the father once was a member of the Ku Klux Klan. However, this family just ignored the Black family next door and did not trouble them. He attended Howard High School in Ellicott City, Maryland, and then University of Maryland.

On May 11, 2007, he was inducted into the Maryland Soccer Hall of Fame. In 2012, he was inducted to the National Soccer Hall of Fame.