Pat Henry

Sport: CoachTrack and Field

Induction Year: 2021

University: New Mexico

One of the most successful coaches in NCAA history, Henry led the combined LSU men’s and women’s track and field program to 19 Southeastern Conference titles and 27 NCAA indoor and outdoor crowns during a remarkable 17-year run from 1988-2004 before accepting the same position at Texas A&M — where he’s coached the past 16 seasons (through 2020). In 33 seasons as a Division I head coach, Henry has claimed 36 NCAA men’s and women’s titles (27 at LSU) with an incredible total of 55 top-three team finishes (35 of them at LSU). In 1989, he led the Tigers to their first NCAA outdoor title in 54 years and also won the women’s crown. In doing so, LSU became the first school to sweep both titles in the same year — a feat Henry would repeat a year later in 1990. He also did it three consecutive years at A&M (2009-11).

Under Henry, LSU also was the first school to sweep the men’s and women’s national indoor titles in 2004. A month shy of his 36th birthday, Henry was hired by LSU in June 1987 from Blinn (Texas) Junior College, where he built one of the nation’s top men’s programs from 1983-87 and led his team to a sweep of the 1987 national NJCAA indoor and outdoor titles. In his first season at LSU in 1988, the Lady Tigers won the NCAA outdoor title for the second year in a row, then claimed the next nine to give the school a streak of 11 national outdoor titles in a row (an NCAA Division I record for women’s athletics that still stands), while adding 10 more indoors (including five in a row from 1993-97). In achieving the most NCAA championships by a head coach for indoor and outdoor track and field, Henry is the active leader and third among NCAA coaches all-time in any sport for national titles. He guided his teams to 19 SEC titles (14 women, five men) and was named the league’s coach of the year 15 times (nine women, six men). One of Henry’s top highlights came in 1989, when LSU claimed seven of a possible eight men’s and women’s titles in the SEC and NCAA indoor and outdoor championships.

Henry was head coach of the U.S. men’s team that won 10 golds and 19 total medals at the 2007 World Championships in Osaka, Japan. At LSU, Henry, who’s recognized as one of the nation’s top sprints and relays coaches, had 37 Olympians who won three gold medals and 38 World Championships participants who brought home six golds. Henry was inducted into the Texas Sports Hall of Fame in 2017. … Born 7-21-1951 in Albuquerque, N.M.