Charlotte, North Carolina‘s Anna Cockrell visited her hometown HBCU, Johnson C. Smith University.
On Tuesday, the silver Olympic medalist was seen on campus talking with the JCSU track team per HBCU Gameday. A video on social media shows Cockrell wearing a Team USA bomber jacket and her silver medal while talking about her big win in the 400m at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
“Nothing was going to stop me from what I had to do. Like that’s really how I felt, because, I mean Coach Lawrence knows this; I sacrificed a lot,” Cockrell said in the video before mentioning how she moved from Los Angeles after college to Texas when she went pro. Her coach took a job in Arkansas, and Cockrell added that moving to Arkansas was the last thing she wanted to do before the video ended.
Cockrell was predestined for greatness. Her father, Kieth Cockrell, was a track star at Charlotte’s Providence Day School under current JCSU track coach Carol Lawrence and is vice chair of the Johnson C. Smith University board. Her older siblings, including former Duke and NFL cornerback Ross Cockrell, also motivated her to be great. As an athlete at Providence Day, Cockrell realized she could go beyond high school track.
Lawrence left Providence Day in June 2022 to become Johnson C. Smith’s head track and field coach. Furthermore, she became Cockrell’s coach in high school, where they formed a close bond over a common goal — the Olympics.
“She has the same mentality that she had in high school,” Lawrence told The News & Observer in August. “A lot of times when they have athletes who do great in high school, they go to college and stop working. Anna had a taste of the Olympic trials in high school and she wanted more of that.”
