Track & Field Report with Pat Henry ahead of SEC Championships in Aggieland

Texas A&M will host the SEC Indoor Championships this weekend in the final event at the Gilliam Indoor Stadium. On Tuesday morning, Texas A&M head coach Pat Henry joined TexAgs Radio to preview what will be the best meet in the country.

Key notes from Pat Henry interview

• An off week is really good, especially for the athlete. Getting everything together for yourself, both physically and mentally, before the SEC Championships is good for you.
   
• This weekend is what our sport is all about. Everything else is rehearsal. You hope the rehearsals have prepared you for this. Those rehearsals also get you into this meet. We have to pick 27 athletes for each gender to represent Texas A&M this weekend. You have to reflect on where you think you can score points. This is about stepping up and doing what you do to the best of your ability on that day. That's what our sport is about: One day.
   
• The SEC Championships will be the best track meet in the country, and it's a fun meet to watch. There's a team element, and it's active. Everyone is supporting their team, and it will be fun to watch.
   
• People are ranked, and you can go through all the rankings that say what the team is supposed to do. It never tells the whole story. This weekend is about telling your own story and stepping up and doing the best that you can. There are always big surprises at this meet.
   
• I look at personnel, and I look where we have opportunities. You have to make some guesses, but the athletes have to put themselves in a position to be chosen for this team.
   
• It's going to be a great competition. In some of those polls, we're not counted in, but we'll see. We've been in this position before. It's about the level of competition you've competed against. The meet dictates the level of performance depending on who you line up against. Sometimes you can't get a good performance when you're competing against a bad team.
   
• We profess that it's about winning the competition. Performance is very important, but first, it's about winning the competition. If you go out there and run anything and run your best and win the race, it might not rank you, but you won the race. That's most important. Great times come about as a result of beating your competition. Good things happen when you win this event.
   
• In percentage-based sports, some institutions have huge advantages, and Arkansas really has huge advantages. In the last couple of years, nobody can compete with Arkansas. They have some academic aid that not all of us have. They have tuition waivers that impact your sport and impact your team. It's not just in track & field. Talk to the baseball coaches about it. This is a distinct advantage for Arkansas, and the SEC understands that as well. Sometimes it's tough to understand how some places can have huge advantages. If it is a head-count sport, there is no advantage. In a percentage-based sport, there are huge advantages, and it's not a level playing field.
   
• My favorite moments are always team moments. It's normally an NCAA Championship that I reflect on. In 2017, we won the championship here on the last straight away on the 4x400, and it all culminated with Fred Kerley coming off the turn and winning the race. The reaction of the crowd was outstanding.
   
• This will be the last competition in this facility. We're going to build a new indoor facility near our outdoor facility as they build a new football facility as well. Change is coming.
   
• There is a couple of events we can do well. On the men's side, the pole vault is an important event. The SEC may not be the best vault conference right now, but our vaulters are doing very well within that group. High jump is important as well. On the women's side, we depend on Lamara Distin having a great meet in the high jump, same with our half milers. We are in the slow heats in both of the relays. We will have to run fast to get into the top four.
   
• We get started with the outdoor season right away. We'll be hosting a huge high school meet for the first time during our off week between SEC indoor championships and NCAA championships.
   
• Distin is big time. I think Charokee Young in the 400m is a big performer. Those two ladies are ranked very high. We have some surprise athletes that can step up on the men's side. We have a couple of quarter milers who have run very well. Relays are always fun to watch as well.
   
• Anytime you're at home, it's fun. Our building will hold right at 5,000 people, and you get the opportunity to put a lot of Aggies in there. We've been able to do that, and it does affect the competition because of how the crowd interacts with the athletes. The emotional part of the competition is big, and you can see that at the SEC Championships.