Track & Field Report: Pat Henry recaps another big weekend for A&M

Texas A&M Track & Field had another memorable week, which featured the dedication of the team's indoor facility to the Fasken family. Head coach Pat Henry joined Tuesday's edition of TexAgs Radio to reflect on the Aggies' showing in the Charlie Thomas Invitational.

Key Notes from Pat Henry interview 

• We had a great weekend. We dedicated the building this weekend, so we had the Fasken family and all the major donors in. We had a great function on Friday morning before the start of the meet, so it was a great weekend.
   
• Jermaisha Arnold is just getting a little bit better as we go. Right now, she needs a bigger challenge than what she has had because she has run away from some people. This weekend at Clemson, she'll have better competition. We'll see some other SEC schools and most of the ACC. Hopefully, it will give her a better competition. After this weekend, we'll have the week off before SEC Championships.
   
• With the women's 4x400m team, they competed well. All of them. Again, Arnold gets the stick in the lead, and that's what the other three ladies are supposed to do. We ran about three seconds faster than we had this year, but I think we had more left in the tank. The men ran 3.04 this week, which is No. 2 or No. 3 in the country. We had good performances again this week.
   
• This was Ushan Perera's opening jump, so he's a little bit rusty. He's a great high jumper. He has a lot more in him, but he jumped 7-2.5 this weekend. To score in the national meets, you are going to have to be absolutely great.
   
• We had a guy run a 3:59 mile not too long ago. Breaking four minutes in a mile used to be a cause for building a statue. Now that ranks 39th in the country.
   
• Sam Whitmarsh had his opening performance this week. We needed him to step up. To run 1:47 in his first time running an indoor 800m is really good. He's another guy that we think is much better than what he showed this time. We had a number of performances this weekend that we are very pleased with, but now the next challenge is going to Clemson.
   
• We need to see some consistency in efforts. We have had that. If anything, we continue to get better each week, and that has to be the challenge. We have to get better as a team to be an SEC champion team or be competitive at the SEC Championships. It is a tremendous track meet. For us to be competitive, a lot of people have to have their best day on the same day. It's about consistency. I like where we are. I like the things we're doing right now. It's just a matter of everybody doing it on the same day. Still, you have to expect something from each other, and it takes a team to do that. To be a team, you have to have expectations of each other. In today's world, that's one of the tougher things to do.
   
• As a teammate, it's hard to go out there and give it your all when the next person might not. If you're giving your all, they have to give their all. That's a development process, and it's tough to deal with it in today's environment. With what's happening in the NCAA, expectation levels for each other are difficult to create. You have to be able to look in the next guy's eyes and know they're going to line it up, so you have to too. That's our goal. That's every coach's challenge today in every team sport. Get the other kids to feel good about each other before you step on the court or the track or before you do anything. That's a huge challenge for coaches today. You have to have a special group that has that feeling for each other because you can have a bunch of great athletes who don't get it done. Camaraderie is one of the more difficult things to develop.