Faith Academy grad Henry shows true character in returning to Rice track

CAPTION: Former Faith Academy standout Augustus Henry symbolizes the best in sports – facing adversity head-on and coming back from it. Courtesy photo

Every athlete says they love the sport they play. Only when it’s taken from them and they must fight to return to the lineup does that love come shining through.

That perfectly describes Rice University heptathlete and decathlete Augustus Henry. The 2021 Faith Academy of Marble Falls graduate has battled through three career-defining injuries since he signed with the Owls and is poised to accomplish all of his goals this season.

“I’m doing well,” he said. “I’m practicing and training.”

The indoor season officially began in mid January. Henry was listed to compete at Texas A&M’s Charlie Thomas Invitational Friday-Saturday, Feb. 7-8.

Henry has worked a long time to be healthy enough to meet the demands of a collegiate track season where it’s divided between indoor and outdoor meets.

He was first on the Rice coaches’ radar during the spring of 2021 when he was competing for the Flames. During a meet at Houston, former Rice coach Drew Fucci began a conversation with him.

“He sold me the most on his own coaching style,” he said. “I felt Rice was the best fit for me. It’s been a tough academic journey. The coaches and support has been very good.”

Rice University’s academic reputation is that if a student can be accepted there, they can be accepted at most Ivy League institutions.

“Rice has lived up to that,” he said. “As long as you get in, you can do anything at any other school. Getting in is very difficult and very doable. They make it very easy to find support. They make sure you’re not alone.”

Henry discovered that shortly after enrolling as he attended classes and went through the offseason to prepare for the 2022 season. That year he earned a bronze medal in the heptathlon at the Conference USA indoor meet and a bronze medal in the decathlon at the C-USA outdoor meet en route to earning all-conference honors.

“My freshman year, I was invincible,” he said. “I could do whatever I wanted to achieve.”

Needless to say, Henry used the rest of the 2022 calendar year to keep his body in tip-top shape and was poised do even better in 2023.

“I was one of the top performers on the entire team,” the athlete said. “They were counting on me to win out.”

But in the first meet of that year in January, as Henry was competing in the high jump, he took a step and felt pain in his lower right leg.

“The right Achilles tendon popped, and I fell to the floor and couldn’t get up,” he said. “That was my first major injury of any kind. I was extremely healthy and then out of nowhere, my life came to a complete stop.”

Achilles tendons are considered stubborn injuries to heal because it has poor blood supply. That means it takes longer for the tissue to repair itself. That fact, even with proper treatment, can mean lengthy recoveries and physical therapy.

Henry said this injury tested his will power, both physically and mentally.

“Going into it, I used a strong mindset,” he said. “By far it was one of the more difficult things I’ve ever done. My will power and my mental strength was being tested.”

That was especially true one night when he experienced excruciating pain in his foot, which was wrapped so tightly that there wasn’t any give. The bones in his foot began breaking, so Henry cut through the cast.

At that time, Henry leaned on his parents and teammates.

“I became self determined to get back and compete,” he said. “I knew I was capable of doing well; I just needed to prove it.”

As the days turned to weeks and months, he went from using crutches with a cast to a mobile scooter with a cast.

“When they took the cast off my foot, it felt dead,” Henry said. “There was no range of motion. I rehabbed it every single day. Every step was incredibly painful. It took an incredibly long time and I was in an incredible amount of pain. I completely forgot how to walk.”

It took months to “be able to get around smoothly” and be “able to jog and run.”

In August 2023, the athletes gathered to “learn all their events and learn how to compete and be on the team,” Henry said.

“I was simply trying to be able to get back,” he said. “I had to learn how to run again. I knew if I could run again, I’d be OK. After a full year, I got used to running again.”

By January 2024, he was ready to go. He set personal bests in the 60-meter hurdles in 8.32 seconds and in the shot put with a heave of 13.37 meters or over 43 feet at the Leonard Hilton Memorial Invitational hosted by the University of Houston.

But then he tore his hamstring in March and tore his ulnar collateral ligament, also called the “Tommy John” injury and ended up taking a redshirt for the outdoor season.

“It was barely holding on by a thread,” he said of the elbow. “After every single throw, it would become very painful. I had a MRI a couple of weeks later. I gave it a lot of rest. It’s such a sensitive area. There’s not a lot of blood flow. I had to be very delicate with it.”

So he committed to rehab where he was meticulous in how much he pushed his body.

But all of that is behind him now as he looks forward to competing to the best of his ability with three years of eligibility remaining.

The son of Angela Henry and Mark Henry is majoring in kinesiology sports medicine with a minor in business. He plans to earn a master’s degree before his eligibility runs out.

The athlete said he doesn’t take anything for granted. He has a daily routine designed to aid his body to endure the challenges of being a heptathlete and decathlete. That includes a balanced diet with plenty of rest.

“I have to take things a little more slowly, methodically and carefully,” he said. “I’m completely determined to do the best I can this season. It’s been a long time coming. I feel I’m deserved and earned a season where I can show what I can do.”