Previewing the SEC Indoor Championships with Pat Henry

On heading into the SEC Championships…

"This is about having everybody have a great day on the same day and it’s a tremendous championship on both sides. The SEC has six or seven teams ranked in the top eight or nine schools in the country, that doesn’t happen in any other sport. So this is the most competitive championship in the SEC. We are a sport within the SEC that has won more than any other sport in the SEC as well, so our meets are big time competitions and you have to be ready to go. So, we spend all year long trying to get ourselves ready for this one competition and then there’s one more after this which would be the NCAAs and then we kind of start it over again with the outdoor championships."

On the progress of getting a new outdoor track…

"Well, there’s some work going on, it is kind of a roller coaster thought process with the whole thing. I feel good at times that we are actually going to do something and then we’re not going to do anything. So, we’ll see. We’re in the process, we just got through meeting with an architectural firm for the last four months, so we will see what’s going to happen there. It’s a huge need, I mean to say that we have a sport that doesn’t compete on campus during their real time of the year, that just doesn’t happen. We’re talking about 60 to 65 schools who are going to be operating differently within the NCAA right now. There’s no question we have the worst facility of all 60 of those schools, so that’s a challenge for Texas A&M and we’ve got to get that done."

On the competition between teammates Deon Lendore and Bralon Taplin…

"I think that’s what environment creates, as an athlete yourself Annie, you know when you’re around people who are good, it heightens your game, it heightens your competition, it heightens your ability to train at a level that allows you on meet day to maybe be just a little bit different. Bralon is one of those guys who has trained behind Deon and has been able to train with Deon of course on a daily basis. So, you begin to develop a strength in yourself in knowing that wait a minute here, I can handle the same kind of things he’s handling. So, if I can get it right between my ears on race day, competition day, I think I have the ability to do it and that’s the process. As an athlete you know that Annie. You train hard, but when you really get to that day it’s about what you think."

On the team's main focus right now…

"A lot of people think that you taper off, start doing less, when in fact it’s not that way. We try to train through it, we try to do some things conducive to continuing to get better. You don’t back off that much, yeah we are going to back off on a few things, but we’re still going to train pretty good and stay in a rhythm and stay in a competitive mode all the time. So it’s about your thought process more than it is your physical."

On this group of athletes…

"Well this is a competitive group, we may not quite have the depth that we’ve had in certain years but we’ve got some high end people. As you know too, we have 140 people on our team, so some of those people are trying to work into that group. At the conference meet we will only take 54 athletes, that’s the maximum you can take. So, we have a group of people that aren’t quite there yet and those are the people that have to come along for us outdoors to develop some depth, but I feel good about where we are. We’ve competed hard, again last week in Arkansas we leave a competitive meet and we are relatively healthy we don’t have anybody that’s out right now and that means we have trained well in the fall and people have prepared."

On A&M's chances of winning SEC Championships…

"I’ve had teams be fourth or fifth in the SEC and we’ve been the national champions. So, this is a different kind of meet than the national meet. It’s going to be very competitive, but I think that both of our teams are where we want to be right now. Whether or not we have enough bullets, I think that’s the key and we’ll see once we get to this competition."