SPORTS
The Battalion I 2.27.15
6
National Champ
Brea Garrett's
journey to the
record books
A FACE
ONA
BANNER
||| liife.i J "
„ Senior Brea
Garrett throws
at a home meet
earlier in the
season.
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Cody Franklin — THE BATTALION
By Seth Stroupe
rea Garrett first came to Texas A&M
on a recruiting visit. It was a standard
trip, with one exception — she wasn’t
the target of the Aggies’ affection that
day. She was only 12 at the time, tagging along
with her older brother, a highly sought-after
basketball prospect.
Her brother wound up choosing Boston
College over A&M, but the Aggies didn’t
walk away empty handed. They hooked a big
recrait that day. They just didn’t know it yet.
“I remember being asleep when we pulled
up and opening my eyes to see Kyle Field,”
Garrett said. “Immediately I thought to myself,
‘This place is awesome.’ I was pretty young at
the time and I don’t know what it was, but
something about this place resonated in my
soul. I was always drawn to Texas A&M. I just
knew it was where I wanted to be.”
Garrett’s stellar high school athletic career
soon made that interest mutual. Garrett had
her hand in just about everything at Martin
Fligh School in Arlington, Texas. She won
three individual state championships in track
for 5A Martin — two in the shot put and an
other in the 100-meter hurdles. She set the
school records for both events and also com
peted in the long jump, where she set a per
sonal best mark of 19 feet, 3 inches.
Off the track, she lettered in basketball,
cheer and gymnastics and even dabbled in
tennis on the side for fun. All of this grabbed
the attention of Texas A&M and it wasn’t
long before Garrett found herself on her own
recruiting visit, standing in front of the wall
displaying A&M’s school record holders.
“[Assistant track coach] Vince Anderson
walked me in and said, ‘You’re going to be on
this board someday,”’ Garrett said. “I laughed
at him. I knew I was pretty good, but things
don’t happen just because someone tells you
that they will. 1 just laughed it off.”
That was over four years ago. Anderson’s
divination has since come to fruition and Brea
Garrett’s likeness now sits inside Gilliam In
door Track Stadium on a banner next to her
school record mark of 74 feet, 4.5 inches in
the weight toss.
“Seeing my face up there was a real coming
of age moment for me,” Garrett said. “When
you start to fulfill your destiny and accomplish
what people have laid out for you, that’s when
you start to realize that maybe they weren’t
just saying those things. They really believed
them. When I saw my face up there, I burst
into tears. It really reaffirmed to me that I am
more than I think I am.”
To Garrett, the banner represents more
than just a record. It represents her entire col
lege journey. It reminds her of how far she’s
come and how much farther she can go. The
Brea Garrett of today is very different than the
one who started her career here four years ago,
and she’ll be the first one to say it.
“My attitude has changed so much since
I got here,” Garrett said. “I used to be very
standoffish and protective of myself because
I didn’t surround myself with the best people
in the past. When my attitude changed, it
completely changed the way I approach ev
erything I do — athletically and in my per
sonal life. When you’re a child, you act like a
child, you think like a child and you do child
ish things. In college, no one’s there to wait
at your beck and call and you have to figure it
out for yourself. You have to better yourself
and change the way you handle people.”
Garrett’s transformation has not been lost
on those around her. Far from standoffish, the
Garrett today is gregarious and polite. Her
personality, which used to keep people at a
distance, now draws them in. Garrett says her
change has been a 180-degree turnaround.
When asked about her attitude, her coach ex
pressed a similar sentiment.
“I didn’t like it when she first got here,”
joked head track coach Pat Flenry. “I’m kid
ding, but she’s changed. She really has. She’s
a very outgoing person now. If my grandchil
dren come up here, the first person they ask to
see is Brea. She’s so great with kids and she’s
a fun girl to have on this team.”
Garrett’s change in approach has been cou
pled with her development as an athlete. At
Texas A&M, she’s been able to focus all her
athletic talents and strength on two events —
the weight toss and shot put. Just months after
setting the school record in the weight toss
at last year’s Aggie Invitational, Garrett won
the an individual national championship in the
event at the 2014 NCAA Indoor Champion
ships.
What should be even more frightemng to
her competition, however, is her continued
improvement in the sport. Garrett has won
the weight toss in five consecutive meets this
season, improving her distance each time. Last
week, she won the Tyson Invitational with
a toss that eclipsed 73 feet en route to being
named the SEC Field Athlete of the Week.
“Brea is a tremendous athlete,” Henry said.
“She’s very talented and she’s beginning to
use all of those talents in throwing the weight.
She’s an explosive person, but she’s never been
able to use all of the natural explosion that she
has. Now, she’s really starting to figure it out.”
This is the final year of competition for
Garrett. In May, she’ll graduate with a degree
in psychology and sociology, which she plans
on using to help improve the lives of children
in the educational setting. This final semester
is a bittersw'eet one for her, as she’s torn be
tween looking forward to what’s to come and
tiying to enjoy everything she’s been able to
experience here at Texas A&M.
Still, Garrett knows she won’t fully be able
to grasp it all until long after she’s gone.
“It still hasn’t hit me yet,” Garrett said. “I
have the trophy. I have the gear. I have all
that stuff. I see it all the time. I even say it. I’ll
say, ‘Yeah, I’m a national champion.’ But it
still has not hit me that I actually did that. I’m
fixing to leave here and go and in two years
or so, I’m probably just going to sit back one
day and say, ‘Wow, I can’t believe I actually
accomplished all that.’ It’s still very surreal. It’s
like a dream and I’m waiting to wake up, but
if I don’t, then that’s cool too.”
As track teams enter championships,
coach Henry says J it r s all about depth'
By Seth Stroupe
The Texas A&M track and field team has en
joyed a level of success this season that has
become synonymous with the program in recent
years, but head coach Pat Henry knows that every
thing up to this point is relatively meaningless in
comparison to this weekend’s SEC Indoor Cham
pionships in Lexington, Kentucky.
“The mental aspect is the most important aspect
of our sport,” Henry said. “You have got to be a
person who is mentally capable of getting everything
out of yourself at that time. We don’t keep a cumu
lative record. It’s all about that one performance. If
you do well enough, then you get to move on. All
the meets we’ve done to this point are rehearsal.
Now you have to use everything you have on this,
the first of the season’s major championships. Our
goal is to have as many people do as well as they’re
capable of doing on the same day. That’s it.”
The Aggies (men No. 4, women No. 7) would
be favorites in just about every other conference in
the nation, but the SEC is a different beast. Five of
the nation’s top eight teams in either gender call the
SEC their home.
“This conference championship lines up like
most of the conference championships in our
sport,” Henry said. “You’ve got 10 of the top 16
schools in the United States are SEC right now on
both genders. It doesn’t get any better than that in
any sport. The conference meet is a meet that’s all
about depth. You have to have high end perfor
mances, but you also have to have people who are
getting those 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th place finishes
too. One point can become a huge factor in a meet
like this.”
The Texas A&M track team is no stranger to the
grand stage. The Aggies are top heavy with experi
ence and talent, but the battle for mid-level, single
point finishes could easily decide how they finish in
Lexington. Henry said depth is crucial for success
in running the conference gauntlet and that’s a bit
of a question mark for this team going into the
weekend.
“This team is coming off of one of the most
The No. 4 men's track team will compete
this weekend at the SEC championships.
dominating performances we’ve ever seen at last
year’s SEC Outdoors, specifically the men’s team,”
Henry said. “I’ve been in this league a long time
and I’ve never seen a school win the 100, 200, 400,
short hurdles, long hurdles and both relays. That’s
never, ever happened. This group has been there
before and they understand the quality of competi
tion. We have a good number of those who are
returning this year, but I’m a litde concerned about
our depth, and I’m a little concerned about our
younger ones.”
The SEC Championships start at 3 p.m. Friday
and will be streamed live on SEC Network Plus.
Vanessa Pena —THE BATTALION
Junior
forward
Jalen Jones
is second
on the team
in scoring
behind
Danuel
House's
15.4 points
per game.
Men’s hoops targets Auburn
for SEC rebound after loss
By Carter Karels
Texas A&M will try its best Sat
urday to recapture its momentum
and keep the NCAA Tournament se
lection committee happy.
A&M (19-8, 10-5 SEC) will host
Auburn in Reed Arena, and a loss
would mark its first defeat to a squad
that ranks outside the RPI top 100.
The Aggies are coming off one of
their biggest games of the year against
Arkansas, an 81-75 loss in Fayetteville.
A&M trailed by as many as 24 points,
but a 28-point effort from Danuel
House and a double-double from Jalen
Jones brought them within striking
distance. However, the No. 18 Razor-
backs were able to ice the game at the
foul line and with defensive execution.
The Tigers (12-16, 4-11 SEC) are
doing the best they can to stay away
from the bottom of the barrel. After
losing four out of its last five, Auburn
sits tied for second-to-last place.
Perhaps the Aggies most impressive
streak, however, came after their first
two SEC losses, which brought six
consecutive wins. In that span, A&M
defeated Auburn 71-61 away from
Reed on Jan. 27. In that game, the Ag
gies shot 50 percent from the field (28-
56), and House led in scoring with 22
points, shooting 6-for-7 from three.
He averages the most points for
the Aggies (15.4) and in the past six
contests, he has accumulated four
20-plus-point performances. As A&M
approaches the end of its most success
ful SEC season. House has only had
one single-digit outing.
The Aggies have already played
each of their last three opponents,
with a 2-1 record. However, there’s
no room for error against the Tigers,
as A&M still lingers in the bubble in
most March Madness projections. The
team is tied for third in the SEC, and
only the top four receive a double-bye
in the SEC tournament.
Tipoff is set for 7:30 p.m.
J