In Their Own Words: Claudia Cox

It has been really hard for me to stay positive when everything I have been looking forward to in the coming weeks and months is cancelled – from my senior season and spring championships, to graduation and every little thing in between. This feeling of loss goes beyond just being a student-athlete. I feel for everyone currently living in quarantine. While I am glad we live in a time with Facetime and Zoom, seeing your friends and the people you love face to face is an irreplaceable feeling that I know I am wishing I had back. I miss looking forward to practice after a long day of school because I knew that laughing and being with my teammates always made any day brighter and better. 

I'm devastated that the season was cut short because I had no doubt that this was the year we would have won our first CCAA title in my four years at UC San Diego. However, I am thankful and proud of the hard work all of my teammates put into this season to make this goal achievable. Personally, I was hoping to return to the NCAA Championships again, especially after coming up short in the 400m hurdles last year. After an overall successful season in 2019, I had confidence in myself going into this year to race against the best of the best. That, combined with the adrenaline of competing in my last races as a senior, I believed would be a power combo to get me on the podium and go out with a bang. 

Honestly, I don’t think it’s fully hit me that all of this will not be happening. While I am sad that I could not finish out this 2020 season, UC San Diego Athletics has given me the best of friends and coaches and I know I will have them by my side for years to come.

You often read stories of college athletes who don’t have the experiences that they thought they would have when continuing their sport in college. I feel so lucky to have experienced an athletics program better than I imagined over the past four years. I would like to thank all of the coaches of the UC San Diego Track and Field program for supporting me throughout my career, especially my primary event coach, Darcy. Coach Darcy has truly showed that she cares beyond my success as an athlete, but also cares for me as a person. She understood how and when I raced best, and developed my skills and confidence as a hurdler. She continues to check in on how I am and how my family is doing. Being an out-of-state student and far from home, it was comforting to have coaches and teammates who truly created that home away from home feeling. 

I’d also like to give a big thank you to our strength coach Jon and his assistant coaches over the years who make the weight room a place I am excited to show up to after a long day of classes and practice. They too showed that they cared about my progress in the weight room but also my life outside of athletics. In addition, my experience with UC San Diego Athletics goes beyond track and field. As member of Tritons Athletes' Council (TAC) for three years, I have created relationships with our administration in the athletic department as well as many other student-athletes across campus. Among others, Katie McGann and Mary Angell have helped me develop professionally and taught me a lot about collegiate athletics in general. I hope I am able to thank you all in person sometime soon.

Something positive that has come out of the COVID-19 situation is that I have realized that sports are a big part of who I am and what makes me happy. Having athletics abruptly taken away from my life made me realize that it is one of the things that I have been most passionate about at UC San Diego. As a result, I have been looking into careers in sports business and management and will hopefully get into an MBA program in the future.

Claudia Cox is four-year member of the UC San Diego Track and Field program. A Physiology and Neuroscience major at Revelle College, Cox currently serves as the Triton Athletes' Council (TAC) President. A native of Greenville, N.C., Cox is a USTFCCCA All-America Second Team honoree, two-time All-West Region (400 hurdles) recipient, as well as a three-time All-CCAA (2x 4x400 relay/400 hurdles) performer. Reigning CCAA Champion in the 400 hurdles, Cox ranks second all-time at UC San Diego with a time of 58.96-seconds. Following graduation, Cox plans on exploring a career in sports business or management and potentially returning to school to earn her MBA. 

"In Their Own Words" is an on-going series highlighting UC San Diego senior scholar-athletes. Below are previous "In Their Own Words" stories:

• Derek Fordham (swim and dive)
• Alyssa Wing (softball)
• Chloe Wight (tennis)
• Melanie Jaffe (rowing)
• Ryan Lew (Men's Volleyball)
• Reilly Gallagher (water polo)
• Jessica Rieble (Women's Volleyball)

About UC San Diego Athletics
After two decades as one of the most successful programs in NCAA Division II, the UC San Diego intercollegiate athletics program begins a new era in 2020 as amember of the Big West Conference in NCAA Division I.  The 23-sport Tritons earned 30 team and nearly 150 individual national championships during its time in DivisionsIII and II and helped guide more than 1,300 scholar-athletes to All-America honors.  A total of 82 Tritons have earned Academic All-America honors, while 37 have earned prestigious NCAA Post Graduate Scholarships.  UC San Diego student-athletes exemplify the academic ideals of one of the world's preeminent institutions, graduating at an average rate of 91 percent, one of the highest rates among institutions at all divisions.