the outdoor facility situation is an absolute shame.
Texas A&M Track & Field
Pat Henry discusses men's indoor title, status of outdoor facility
Key notes from Pat Henry interview
- I think that’s a great thing about this championship, getting to win at home. We have a community with 5,000 people in the building on Saturday, they had to close the doors. I had people calling me during the meet wanting to get in the back door. Couldn’t have been a more exciting finish for the Aggies, they rushed the floor after the meet.
- On the first day we had a few guys who weren’t projected to score that did. Will Williams had a personal best in the long jump and got second. Audie Wyatt came out and set the school record in pole vault, and finished second. We scored 16 points on the first day, which put us in a good position to do well. To win a championship, everyone has to have a great day on the same day.
- I feel like Lindon Victor is going to score more in the decathlon than any athlete in the history of the NCAAs in outdoors this year, if he can stay healthy. He did a great job on Friday, he had two or three personal bests. Then he came in and jumped 6-9 in in the high jump, and for a decathlete that is pretty good. He ended up fifth and those were very valuable points.
- Fred Kerley runs the opening leg in the 400m relay, he ran the fastest split time by a collegiate athlete. I put Fred up first because we wanted a guy who breaks out and gets into the clear. Bobby Grant ran second this week, I just felt like he was really ready to go. He ran well, but he did not run great. Devin Dixon, our freshman half-miler who I think is going to be great ran third. He didn’t have a great exchange but he ran well.
- Then Mylik Kerley ran the final leg. A lot of guys make the mistake of coming out too fast when they are trying to catch someone. Malik did a great job at reeling him in. Then he has the strength to catch him and beat the guy. You can see the guy tiring in front of you, but you’re still gauging what you can do and running your best race.
- The funny part about the whole thing is, we have one of the top two indoor facilities in the country, us and Arkansas. Coach Sumlin lets us use the indoor football facility for warm-ups, which is very unique. We have won eight outdoor championships, and may have the worst outdoor track and field facilities in the country.
- I don’t really know if the outdoor track and field facility is moving forward. There is a lot of talk, but there are no tractors moving, that’s all I can tell you. If you’re going to build a facility, you build it well. There is no question, we have the absolute worst facility win the SEC, we had the worst in the Big 12. We are somewhere in the process of getting it done, but I don’t know when. We envisioned running a meet here in 2018, so I don’t know.
- I think if Aggies were to come out and look at that facility, they would be embarrassed. All people need to do is drive over to Austin, look at Texas' facility, look at LSU's facility. As an Aggie it's just not a good situation right now.
- We really hadn’t talked about the ladies, but we just ran the fastest 4x4 in school history this weekend. We really do not have a female jumper right now for the outdoor events. With the men's team, I feel like if we stay healthy we could be in the mix and win. You got to be healthy and be ready to go, and that’s my job.
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