His dominance in the sport is obvious. Is it his ability to seek out talent and obtain it, or does he have training methods that nobody else has caught on to?

What makes the man the legend that he is?

I'm sure like any other coach - recruits well & trains/motivates well.
Doesn't matter the sport - it's the same formula.

It's also his efficient use of scholarships. If you are a scholarship athlete under Henry, you better perform. He has no problem reducing or eliminating your scholarship altogether in favor of someone else who is producing or an incoming freshman. He doesn't waste a dollar of scholarship money for long.

On CBS the commentators kept mentioning the fact that he has a formula that works. That formula is to concentrate on the sprint, and jumping events. Obviously Henry can recruit, and he gave props to his coaching staff also.

Coach Henry has an amazing history of success.
Track and Field (both M&W) covers a lot of territory, including speed, strength, throwing,jumping, and so forth. Just wondering how he consistently puts it all together and manages to achieve such success in events where the difference is often measured in a fraction of one inch or a few hundredths of one second. Recruiting is obviously a big part of it, but it takes more to squeeze that razor-thin margin out of the athletes.
Also wondering about his background as an athlete. I did not see a reference to it on one of his bios.

As was pointed out on the football board, not only did BB triple his salary to get him here, but gave him the budget to hire the best assistants at head coach level salaries, gave him the world class indoor facility and the budget to travel first class...all that helps get the best recruits! Now we need to go full speed ahead with the new outdoor track facility!

Once you establish yourself into the rarified air of being a national championship coach, it does wonders for recruiting. Now think about how many Pat has won in the last 20 years...and then think about that he's been able to do it with both the men's and women's teams at two different schools now. Recruits should be beating our door down from here forward. I agree that, as long as Pat is here, everything (short of a new outdoor track) is in place for a potential dynasty -- in both sports.

Henry's skill is evident by winning a Men's Championship without any dominant athletes (no individual winners). He knows how the game is played, technical coaching aside.

He knows how to score points. He is also really good at picking not only great athletes, but mentally tough athletes too. He's been compared to Augie Garrido and Phil Jackson as far as cultivating the mental side as well as the execution side.

Good point about knowing how to get points across the board. If he does not have "dominate" athletes, just think what he will do when they come on board. Let's see: Dominate Athletes = More Points = More NCs.

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He is also really good at picking not only great athletes, but mentally tough athletes too.

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This.

Our 4X400 was supposed to finish 5th, but they got second. I believe he recruits runners who have this ability to defy the odds. Lucky for us that he has the option to pick and choose his recruits.

One of my co-workers went to LSU and walked onto the track team (he seems like a pretty athletic guy).

He said that Henry's practices were ridiculous and that the warmup to the practice was harder than anything he'd done before. Granted, you could probably say this about a lot of track coaches, but I thought it was interesting to hear it from someone with first hand experience.

blynch, when your friend said this, was it more of a whine about how hard it was, or was he explaining that Henry is so good because he can motivate his athletes to work this hard and not quit?

I had the pleasure of working with Coach Henry and the rest of the new staff in their first year here. Coach Henry is a brilliant man, but one thing that makes him so successful is the way that he recruits. He's not just looking for talent, he's looking for the right type of athlete. He is an amazing judge of both athletic potential and character. His workouts are not any harder than other coaches, but they are highly specialized with a very specific purpose. Most coaches give very generic workouts with no variation from year to year. He and his coaching staff tailor the workouts based on what their athletes need to work on at that time. This is incredibly different than just about any other coaching staff.

I also don't think that he won't be going anywhere for a long time. He said that he fully expects this to be his last coaching job. We are also very lucky to have Vince Anderson although he doesn't get quite as much publicity. He is one of the top technical sprint coaches in the United States, both college or professional. The combination of these 2 coaches will bring many, many national championships to Aggieland for years to come.

[This message has been edited by ctstrack (edited 6/15/2009 6:26p).]

thanks ctstrack. sounds good. henry is the man.

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blynch, when your friend said this, was it more of a whine about how hard it was, or was he explaining that Henry is so good because he can motivate his athletes to work this hard and not quit?

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Probably a little bit of both. Most people don't like to get pushed really hard, but you don't mind it as much if you know that there will be tangible benefits down the road. His comments were probably both of what you described.

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His workouts are not any harder than other coaches, but they are highly specialized with a very specific purpose.

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After thinking about it, I remember a little bit more of the conversation I had with my friend. I think that the above quote is consistent with our conversation. The workouts that he described were not so much grueling as they were intense. My friend ran hurdles, and he was describing how the drills were designed to increase flexibility in the hips. He said that his legs were so sore he could barely walk the next few days, because his muscles were not used to be stretched or worked like that.

Coaches who don't have any of their athletes whining and complaining about how tough things are usually don't win championships...in fact, most of them get fired.