Anna Cockrell
This item is part of a collection of stories featured on the USC Athletics’ Title IX Celebration page. For more, visit www.usctrojans.com/TitleIX
by Aubrey Kragen
Anna Cockrell was up all night.
The track & field standout was racing to put the final touches on her 60-page honors thesis, the last assignment of her undergraduate career at USC. Cockrell spent so long working on her paper that she didn’t have time to write the speech she’d been invited to deliver at student-athlete graduation the next day.
“I had been writing nonstop for four days, so I had nothing else to say,” Cockrell explained. “So I just went up and talked about what I know best, which is me.”
Cockrell, who graduated in three years with a 3.98 cumulative GPA — the highest of any student-athlete at USC — nervously approached the podium, knowing she was about to share a deeply personal story about herself with the entire graduating class.
“I’ve battled depression on and off since my 10th grade year,” Cockrell told the crowd. “I am a perfectionist … and this year, the quest for perfection, the quest to maintain this box that I built for myself, the quest to maintain this image of the perfect scholar, the perfect student-athlete, the perfect leader, it began to crush me.”
The North Carolina transplant explained that her bouts of depression made her feel isolated and exhausted for months at a time, including a seven-month period of the 2018-19 school year.
“I was performing all day — performing emotional and mental well-being,” Cockrell said. “So by the time I was home and done for the day, I would absolutely shut down. I had nothing left to give. Some people have insomnia when they’re depressed, but I just wanted to sleep all the time.”
Her lowest point came after Indoor Nationals in March of 2019, when she suffered a hamstring strain which knocked her out of competition. Cockrell was devastated by the injury, but later came to see it as a blessing in disguise. She explained this during her commencement speech by invoking a quote from her favorite author, James Baldwin:
“At the very moment I thought I was lost, my dungeon shook and my chains fell off.”“That was what getting injured meant for me,” Cockrell divulged. “I thought it was the end of the world. I thought it was the end of my season. But instead, it freed me.”
Cockrell’s injury plunged her deeper into depression, to the point where USC director of track & field Caryl Smith-Gilbert could finally see through the team captain’s smiling facade. Smith-Gilbert called Cockrell into her office and allowed her to open up about her struggles for the first time, which Cockrell describes as a life-changing event. After sharing her vulnerability with Smith-Gilbert, Cockrell began opening up to anyone who would listen, including USC sport psychologists, family members and teammates.
She finally allowed herself to not be perfect.
Cockrell, the youngest of three siblings, attributes her lifelong obsession with perfection to a number of factors.
“Maybe a little bit was the way I was born. Maybe a little bit was being the youngest child and feeling the need to match my siblings’ achievements. And maybe being involved in gymnastics as a kid played a role too — it’s very much a perfectionist sport. You need to hit everything just right, and the smallest thing makes them nitpick and nitpick and nitpick and deduct,” Cockrell explained. “I think there’s a lot of pressure on women, too. My dad got me this book called Brave, Not Perfect, which taught me that there’s a lot of pressure to look like you’ve got it all, do it all and make it look effortless.”
Cockrell’s quest for perfection has been destructive at times, but has also pushed her to achieve incredible things.
In the athletic realm, she ran the second leg in USC’s NCAA Championship-clinching 4×400 relay in 2018 and finished second in the NCAA 400m hurdles in 2017 and 2018. In the classroom, she earned straight As (save a single A-minus in the fall of 2018) as a Communication major with a minor in Political Science. She’s now pursuing a Master’s in Public Policy. During her free time, Cockrell has busied herself with music, volunteer work and building an impressive resume. She has interned on the campaign trail for California senator Dianne Feinstein and California state superintendent of public instruction candidate Marshall Tuck.
Once she’s done with track & field, Cockrell would like to work in the political field to help eradicate inequality in the education system.
But she’s not done with track & field quite yet. Tomorrow, the Women of Troy kick off the 2019 NCAA Championships in Austin, Tex., hoping to take home their second national title in a row. Cockrell will compete in the 100m hurdles, 400m hurdles and 4×400 relay.
Cockrell is confident in herself and believes that this year’s team is even stronger than last season, when the women won the national title by just 1 point.
“I can tell that the team is ready. The energy we have heading into NCAAs is the best since I’ve been here and we’re all communicating and executing on a really high level,” Cockrell said. “As for me, I feel like this is my shot. This is my time. Time to go out and not think and just run.”