USC`s Anna Cockrell finds her voice outside the facade of perfection

.....On the first day of the 2019 indoor national championships, Cockrell strained her hamstring. It knocked her out of the competition, in which USC finished second. In the back of her head, Cockrell blamed herself for the team not finishing first.

“Now, that’s not true at all really because that’s not what a team is,” Cockrell said in hindsight. “But in that moment, getting hurt, it felt like my body had betrayed me.”

And then came the feeling that can be inescapable for an athlete on the shelf: The feeling of abandonment, of being left behind by the team that’s been trained into a “next man up” mentality as she missed practices and meets for her rehab assignment.

Cockrell tried to hide the feelings, taking it upon herself as captain to tell the team they could win without her. But those kinds of thoughts made her question her self-worth, too.

“It’s this weird dichotomy between wanting the team to do well, and then, I’m not a part of that now,” she explained.....

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Bethany`s Notes: An honest story from a student-athlete at USC. The more we share the more we know we are not alone in our struggles.