TCU diver surrenders all to God: “It frees me to do my best”
Anna Kwong poses during the Big XII Conference Championship. (courtesy photo)
FORT WORTH — Texas Christian University diver Anna Kwong has already surpassed most student athletes’ dreams. She has bronze, silver, and gold medals from the Big XII Conference Championship, the National Invitational Championship, and USA Diving Open Nationals. She’s earned an NCAA elite student-athlete status. She’s an NCAA Championship Qualifier and Team USA Olympic Trials Finalist. She's been the Big XII Conference's diver of the week 10 times in her collegiate career. She’s broken TCU records, only to break them again.
She works hard, practicing 20 hours per week. But rather than keeping her tactic for winning to herself, the biology major shares with everyone the key to her success: surrendering all to God and doing all things for His Glory.
"Diving has really given me a huge opportunity to surrender to God, and it has forced me to rely on God,” she said. “He wants us to succeed and gives us opportunities to step out of our comfort zones and grow in the directions He's leading us. In sports, you're pushing to grow and improve, and that's taught me to have that same mindset in my faith. Making Olympic trials showed me that the mindset of surrender to God is the most productive. It frees me to do my best instead of putting so much pressure on myself.”
Born and raised Catholic in Omaha, Nebraska, Kwong discovered her love of diving in high school. Ever since, she’s been honing both her faith and her passions with the same goals and devotions. Her favorite devotions include Psalms 121 and 23, Padre Pio’s “Stay With Me, Lord,” and the Litanies of Humility and Graces of the Cross. She credits Adoration, praying the Surrender Novena with her mother, and using the Hallow app’s Pray 40 and prayers for athletes for transforming her faith and her diving performance.
Her faith has also been crucial to discerning her next step in life: instead of beginning medical school in fall as she’d planned, she came to realize through prayer that she wished to continue diving: “I was following the bread crumbs and praying for discernment, doing novenas, offering Rosaries and Masses, and trying to discern the will of God in Adoration. I kept coming back to 'I cannot imagine being done with diving in March.’ I feel like I have so much left to give and improve.”
As a valued member of TCU’s Newman Center community, Kwong finds support and joy singing in the choir and serving on the faith formation committee and student leadership council. She has a way of welcoming people and drawing them in, inviting newcomers, and leading groups, Campus Minister Catherine Zickert said. "If a new student comes by, I immediately introduce them to Anna if I have the opportunity because she's always so joyful,” she noted.
Kwong credits university chaplain Father Jonathan Wallis and Zickert for their guidance and friendship. In turn, they’ve witnessed her development as both an athlete and daughter of God. "When reading about an athlete, you hear about their scores and successes, which you absolutely do with Anna, but in all the articles or podcasts, she is very intentionally talking about her faith, giving glory to God, and mentioning the Newman Center and her involvement,” Zickert said. “That absolutely is opening the door for students to feel welcomed here. People are now becoming more aware because of her evangelizing.”
Kwong’s devout maturity indeed comes from very real experiences. She recalled last December, during the USA Diving Winter Nationals at Indiana University, in which she watched the effect of trust completely turn around her performance.
“I was really nervous, and I really wanted to do well. I was trying to be more self-reliant and do it myself instead of trusting that I put in the work and that God's will is greatest. In trying to force it, I self-sabotaged.
"Going into my last dive, I was behind 10-15 points, so I focused on setting my own pace and on surrendering to the Lord, saying, 'It's just me and the Lord and the board.’ I'm doing this for the glory of God, and not myself. Then I did my dive, and I nailed it, and it bumped me up from like third to first. I was so floored that that was God's will for me, that surrendering to Him produced that outcome. Knowing that I didn't do it on my own, being able to share that with my competitors who are my friends as well, and glorifying God and turning it back to Him, was really fulfilling and showed me a sneak peek of what the next three years could be like.
“God wants to hear your desires,” she continued. “He's not gonna not take care of it. He only wants what's best for us. Voicing that desire to Him and being really scared to do so, then having that fulfilled, continues to shock me. It keeps me in an attitude of gratitude. Everything I have is from God. If I tried to do this on my own, it wouldn't have happened.”
Kwong asks for prayers as she continues pursuing her “God given passion,” competing in Mexico, Canada, and Singapore, as well as stateside. "Pray for safety, success, and that I'm able to surrender and give God His due glory throughout.”