HOUSTON — At about 1:15 p.m. on Friday, Chevis Armstead ran the 110-meter hurdles event in 14.26 seconds at the Florida Relays in Gainesville. Less than three hours later, the freshman Syracuse University sprinter was aboard a plane bound for Houston.

“I was supposed to be at the meet until Sunday,” Armstead said, “but I had to get here.”

That’s because he’ll be singing the national anthem prior to Saturday’s two Final Four games — the second of which will be between the Syracuse men’s basketball team and the University of North Carolina — at NRG Stadium. Armstead will be part of a four-person ensemble singing the anthem, with each school in the Final Four getting one athlete representative.

It won’t be Armstead’s first time singing the national anthem prior to a Syracuse men’s basketball game this season. He did so before the team took on Wisconsin in early December, a gig he earned by auditioning in October.

When the basketball team reached the Sweet 16 earlier this month, an NCAA representative contacted Kerri Jennings, the marketing and promotions coordinator for SU Athletics who schedules anthem singers at the Carrier Dome, and asked her to recommend an athlete to sing the national anthem at the Final Four.

Jennings chose Armstead, and all he needed to sing at college basketball’s biggest event was for SU to get there — providing a little more incentive for him to root on the Orange.

“I almost don’t want to say that because I’ll seem selfish, but I was, yes,” he said, with a laugh, of rooting even harder for the team.

Armstead’s schedule since arriving in Houston has been and will stay jam-packed. He performed a rehearsal over FaceTime with Anna Diemer, the chorus manager for the Houston Symphony, and had a full rehearsal at 11 a.m. local time.

He and the other singers will also have a sound check later in the day, before they sing the anthem around 6 p.m. local time. After that, they’ll get to watch the games from a suite in NRG Stadium.

Armstead expects he’ll be able to keep his nerves in check on Saturday, even given that it’ll be on a national stage, since he won’t be singing solo.

“It’s a lot easier to sing in an ensemble, because you have the support of the people with you and everything else,” he said.

It’s the biggest event Armstead will have sung at, and it’s something he’s been working toward for as long as he can remember.

When he was as young as 2 years old, Armstead would sing in the morning while his mom was getting him dressed for the day. He joined his first choir in elementary school and has been in one ever since.

By the time he was in high school, he began singing the national anthem at a number of different events.

“So I know (the anthem) pretty well,” he said. “I’ve done it a lot.”

Published on April 2, 2016 at 1:57 pm

Contact Michael: mdburk01@syr.edu