T&F Report: Henry's Ags continue outdoor season in Baton Rouge & Raleigh

Outdoor season is here for Texas A&M track & field, as Pat Henry's Aggies will split travel with the Battle of the Bayou and Raleigh Relays this weekend. The legendary head coach joined Wednesday's edition of TexAgs Live to provide an update on his program.

Key notes from Pat Henry interview

• Our men are the SEC Champions. If you win an SEC Championship in this league, that's pretty significant. Our men did a great job. They beat Arkansas right here on our home track.
   
• We had a great indoor season. We got to the national meet, and the national meet is no different than the basketball NCAA Tournament. If you miss a 3-point shot at the wrong time, you're in trouble. We ran into each other on the men's first leg of the mile relay. We got the best of them, running into each other, but they disqualified us along with some others. It was a tough pill to swallow on the men's side.
   
• On the ladies' side, I thought we did a great job. We did everything we could. We finished seventh in the United States, so I'm pleased with that. The men's team finished 10th. We went in there with aspirations of winning that track meet, but it didn't happen. It was not a good finish for us at the national meet, but we are the SEC Champions.
   
• Camryn Dickson ran an 11.06 in the 100-meter race and also helped out the 4x100 team. We started our outdoor season by going to UTSA. A week after the indoor meet, we're back on the road. We had good competition, but we didn't compete with many of our people who went to the national meet. Dickson's 11.06 in the 100-meter race is a really, really good run for her.
   
• Our ladies' 4x100 ran well. They ran 43 seconds-plus, so that's a really good run. For the men, we were in good shape until the last exchange, and then we didn't get the last exchange. Early season, some of that is to be expected. You can't have that later on.
   
• We move right into the outdoor season. There is no time for anything but being ready to go. It's the way track and field is run. We've had a lot of people who have not had the opportunity to compete yet this year and did get this opportunity this week: our discus throwers, our javelin throwers, intermediate hurdles and our 4x100 meter relay.
   
• We have a lot of things that are just starting to happen, and then we have some things like our hurdler. Jaiya Covington ran the fastest time. She's the national champion in the short hurdles. She had a great indoor season, and now we move to the outdoor season, and we look forward to the same kind of things happening. The transition is normal for our athletes. It's the way our sport thinks.
   
• At UTSA, we lined up and competed against ourselves better than I've seen us do in a little while. The level of competition wasn't very good. Sometimes, in those situations when the level of competition isn't good, you drop to the level of the competition. If you do that, you're really not doing the things that you need to be doing. Our group did a good job of trying to compete at the level they're capable of competing at. Each athlete is a little bit different. Our sport is of many disciplines. Each athlete has different challenges early in the season than they do late in the season. It's a balancing act.
   
• This week, we're split. Part of the team is going to LSU, and part of the team is going to the Raleigh Relays. We only have 10 athletes that we're separating from our group. We'll take 60 down to LSU this weekend, and that's the main competition this weekend. Splitting the group is not something I like to do as a coach, but it's something that the sport almost demands that we do from time to time.
   
• The level of competition at the Battle of the Bayou is about as good as it gets this early in the season. It will be a big challenge. We could go to a meet that doesn't challenge us like the UTSA meet didn't, but the challenge of doing the absolute best you can do and then adding the best competition is another element, and you have to be able to do both at the same time.
   
• When the environment is really challenging, they have a more difficult time doing what they are absolutely able to do. It's a rehearsal. We don't keep a cumulative record like a lot of sports. What we do have is a performance that leads to a meet at the end of the year that you have to be ready to go on that one single day. You have to be ready to do everything you do at the best. We have fixed-rate rehearsals before that meet, and that's our challenge moving forward.