2 years after wanting to quit, Charlotte’s Anna Cockrell is an Olympian. Here’s how
Anna Cockrell had just run the best race of her life to qualify for the Olympics last month when an interviewer turned to her. Overwhelmed with emotion, she tried to gather herself before speaking.
“I’m sorry, I’m really emotional,” gasped the 23-year old, her eyes glassed over. “I just worked really hard for this. In 2019 I was super depressed, I didn’t want to be here anymore, so to be standing here today as an Olympian is more than I can take,” Cockrell said, her voice breaking.
Cockrell achieved a personal record of 53.70 seconds in the 400-meter hurdles at the Olympic trials in Eugene, Oregon on June 27. She was in 5th place as she rounded the final turn in the outermost lane, and then kicked into another gear, passing Nnenya Hailey on the second to last hurdle and inching ahead of Shamier Little in the final 50 meters to claim third place and the final spot on the U.S. Olympic team.
Cockrell was born in California but attended Providence Day School in Charlotte. She fell in love with the 400-meter hurdles during her freshman year and went on to be a 12-time, NCISAA state champion in the event. Her success continued at University of Southern California, where she recently won both the 100-meter hurdles and 400-meter hurdles at the 2021 NCAA Track & Field Championships and set a USC record in the 400-meter hurdles.
As an outstanding student, leader, and athlete throughout her high school and collegiate careers, Cockrell resisted addressing the mental health struggles she had experienced since 10th grade.
Embracing vulnerability
In 2019, Cockrell gave a strikingly open, heart-felt commencement speech at USC’s student-athlete graduation in which she shared her struggles with depression.
“The two things that I don’t like to talk about are that I have battled depression on and off since 10th grade and that I am a perfectionist... I don’t like to ask for help, I don’t like to seem weak, I don’t like to let people know that I struggle,” she told her fellow student-athletes in May 2019.
The pressure of being the perfect student, athlete and leader began to crush Cockrell during her junior year of college. When she got injured at indoor nationals in 2019, Cockrell felt like it was the end of her world. Caryl Gilbert Smith, the USC Director of Track & Field, was the first to pull Cockrell aside and help her open up. Her coaches encouraged her to talk about her feelings.
“For me, I internalized the idea of ‘working through’ as literally continuing to work at the most ferocious pace possible. You know, collecting achievements, and making the grades, and going super hard in practice, and ultimately working towards burn out,” Cockrell told The Observer.
Her coaches and thesis advisers urged Cockrell to pause and address her struggles through therapy. Breaking a pattern of suppressing her mental distress and channeling all her energies into schoolwork and track was a difficult but ultimately freeing decision for her, she said.
Cockrell had to learn how to give herself a break. She learned how to rest when she needed to and practice self-compassion when a workout didn’t go perfectly.
“Asking for help is not a sign of weakness, it’s a sign of strength,” she said in her 2019 speech.
She credits her support network of coaches, family, and friends for helping her when she was at her lowest.
The nerdy Cockrell family?
It’s no secret that the Cockrell family is a bunch of jocks. Anna’s brother, Ross Cockrell, played football for Duke before going to the NFL, where he played for the Carolina Panthers and is now a cornerback for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Anna’s sister, Ciera Cockrell, captained Davidson’s Division I volleyball team. And Kieth Cockrell, their father, who was recently named the president of Bank of America Charlotte, played football at Columbia.
But they’re also nerds.
Anna is currently re-reading Louis Althusser’s “On The Reproduction Of Capitalism: Ideology And Ideological State Apparatuses.”
“I was talking to my brother about ideological state apparatus and then I decided I’d re-read the book,” she said.
Cockrell often re-reads and re-watches things. At the Olympic trials, Anna and Ross re-read Machiavelli’s “The Prince,” a 16th-century political treatise, together. They would call and discuss their takeaways.
“I like familiarity, so I’ll read the same thing over and over again. And I’ll watch the same thing over and over again because I want to make sure that I really grasp all of it and understand it,” Anna said.
Anna recalled frequent visits to museums as a kid, extra summer schoolwork, and the fact her mother, Serena Cockrell, who has an engineering degree from Columbia, made everyone do SAT prep in solidarity with Ross when he was applying to college.
“Sometimes it’s strange for me to hear our family described as sporty. Because I feel like so much of growing up was super nerdy stuff,” Anna said. “I remember we used to have table placemats with the presidents of the US and the US capitals on them.”
Anna earned awards for academic excellence every year at USC, and completed a master’s of public policy earlier this year. She hopes to earn a doctoral degree and pursue a career in local government.
“Of course we are proud of her getting into the Olympics... But what I am most proud of is the young woman she is developing into,” her father said.
Cultivating headspace
When asked how she was able to pull off a sub-54-second race, Cockrell said she was confident after her strong performance a few weeks ago at the NCAA’s, where she won both the 100-meter and 400-meter hurdles.
“I just knew I was going to have to run the best race of my life if I was going to get on the team. I knew based on my times in practice that I was capable of running a 53. I just hadn’t quite put it together in a race yet,” she said.
Cockrell is a doggedly goal-oriented person, and she has learned over the years that agonizing over the details of her races can make it harder for her when competing.
“There’s such a thing of paralysis by analysis,” she said. “... So I had to get out of my own way and let my body do what I knew it was capable of.”
Staying calm amid Tokyo turmoil
Cockrell’s past two years of competing during the COVID-19 pandemic have been anything but conventional.
Last week, Tokyo declared a state of emergency as athletes arrived in the city amid a spike in COVID-19 cases. No spectators will be allowed at the events, and the Cockrell family will have to watch her races on TV.
Olympic athletes’ movements will be closely monitored in Tokyo; they are subject to a three-day quarantine upon arrival and must be tested daily. They cannot leave the athletes’ village, socializing with other athletes is prohibited and athletes must depart Tokyo within 48 hours of their last event.
“This whole year has been managing change,” Cockrell said. “It’s kind of amazing that we are even having the Olympics, so I’m just going to be flexible… if you get super caught up in all the changes, rules, and restrictions, you’re setting yourself up to be frustrated and to be off your game.”
And there’s always Beyonce’s “Homecoming,” Cockrell’s favorite Netflix documentary, to keep her entertained during her quarantine.
Managing all the attention
Cockrell has received an outpouring of support on social media and local news platforms since qualifying for the Olympics.
“It’s been weird,” she says. “... I’m so appreciative of all of it. It’s a bit overwhelming at times.”
“For me, it didn’t really sink in until I walked into a coffee shop by my apartment and they were like ‘an Olympian’s here!’”
Cockrell is wary of getting caught up in the excitement of making the U.S. Olympic team, knowing that her most important races are still to come.
“This is not the end of the journey. I have to go and compete and there’s still work to do,” she said.
This story was originally published July 13, 2021 at 6:00 AM with the headline "2 years after wanting to quit, Charlotte’s Anna Cockrell is an Olympian. Here’s how."