Coach of the Year - Best of 2009

Many coaches dream of guiding a program to becoming a national powerhouse, but in reality many will never reach that level. Pat Henry is a coach that has now accomplished this multiple times in his career. While at LSU Coach Henry led his men's and women's squads to a total of 27 national titles and now as Henry enters his 6th year at Texas A&M, he already has two championships with the Aggies. In 2009 at the Outdoor Championships Henry led the Texas A&M men's and women's team to a sweep of the national titles, an accomplishment that he earned twice at LSU. Pat Henry has taken on the challenge of doing things different to raise the status of track & field and in doing so we've seen a new state-of-the-art indoor facility that seats 5000 spectators (and also sells season tickets!), they are creating some great meets including duals/conference challenges, and they are now expanding their upgrades to their outdoor facilities. I think Sam Seemes said it best when he spoke about the roles of collegiate track and field coach's changing and evolving, this is something Pat Henry has embraced. This past year the indoor facility hosted the NCAA Indoor Championships, which was the first time in a long time that the meet was held outside of Fayetteville. Coach Henry and his staff were recently ranked with the #1 recruiting classes for both the men and the women (3rd consecutive year for the women) so it looks like we'll be seeing great things from this group in 2010 as the Aggies look to defend their titles in Eugene. Congrats on a great year to Pat Henry and his staff and thanks for all your contributions to our sport!