Sisterhood, On and Off the Course
4/20/2020
Alison Chang and Anabelle Chang have been teammates on and off for a long time, mostly on. It’s a run that came to an end this spring.
A run that started long before and is nowhere close to over, though, is their sisterhood, first with their familial tie and more recently in the family of Princeton golf.
What’s changing now is that after being teammates in middle school, high school and then college, just a year apart all along, it’s almost time for senior Alison to graduate while junior Anabelle gets set to return for her own senior year to come.
Of course, they always knew that would happen, at least since Anabelle decided to come to Princeton. They just thought they’d be together on the course, as teammates, a little longer.
“I thought we were going to play the Ivy League Championship together,” Anabelle said. “I felt tremendously sad and devastated that we wouldn't be able to complete our eight-plus years of golf together, but also I’m just going to use it as motivation to try my best next spring. To be able to come full circle and play in the championship with my sister in her last season, and to have that closure, was always a dream of mine, and having that taken away makes this journey feel incomplete."
The pair were part of the program’s 2018 Ivy championship team and were two tournaments into the spring season when the rest of competition was canceled due to COVID-19.
“I think, especially since her senior season was canceled, I think that’s just another point of motivation for me to really want to do well and win the Ivy League championship next spring for both her and for my teammates,” Anabelle said.
Premature ending or not, that they would be teammates at all after high school was not a foregone conclusion.
“Coming out of high school where we did seem like we were just following in each other’s footsteps, I think she wanted to forge her identity of who she was. I think it’s hard being a little sister sometimes,” Alison said. “I think it was her decision at the end, too, to end up coming to Princeton. I think that’s something that she ended up valuing a lot as well, having family (close by).”
The familiarity of knowing what life at Princeton would offer for Anabelle was up against making her own way apart from her sister.
“I remember in junior golf, I was very hesitant to want to go to the same school as my older sister just because we’ve kind of played the same sports, done all the academics together the entire way, and I wanted to forge my own path, find my own identity in college and not have to use my older sister to find a social life or find friends or always need help for everything in school,” Anabelle said.
Indeed, Anabelle had other Ivy options. But being able to see the Princeton experience through the eyes of her big sister, Anabelle saw what she needed to see to make Princeton her choice.
“I just realized that a lot of the reasons I chose Princeton was based on research that I had done on my own, and what I had heard from my sister about how Princeton supports its undergraduate students,” Anabelle said. “I think her being on the team was just an added bonus because I got to hear first-hand all her experiences that she had on the golf team, all the cool trips that she got to take and how all her professors and preceptors were extremely supportive of her throughout her educational experience at Princeton.”
The athletic experience and academic experience is going to be unparalleled at Princeton compared to any other Ivy League school you choose to go to.Junior Anabelle Chang
It was a choice well made, she said.
“In retrospect I’m really glad that I ended up coming to the same school as her,” Anabelle said. “Transitioning from the west coast all the way to the east coast, being away from home and without all of my friends with me, having someone that I already knew on campus and that I knew I could already trust just made the process so much easier.”
Though their college destination brought them together, and to Springdale Golf Club, their academic pursuits diverged. Alison, an anthropology major on a pre-med track, will head toward her career. Anabelle will return for her final year in the computer science department.
Both, of course, have had to adjust to courses moving online.
“I think there hasn’t been too much of an effect,” Anabelle said of the move to online classes. “I think the hardest part has been collaboration because as you get to the higher levels of computer science classes, you do more group projects and group work. It’s been a bit more difficult coordinating with my friends who are on the east coast or who are international, like in Hong Kong. Other than that, I think the lectures and precepts have been, for the most part, just the same as it was in school.”
On top of the medical school prep, Alison is viewing the current global situation through the lens of a future professional in the field.
“Right now, especially when medical professionals are put in the spotlight and all essential workers are put in the spotlight, it forces you to realize that there’s such a piece of selflessness and service in medicine,” Alison said. “All of that is brought into great relief right now, in a period of crisis. I think it has really affirmed my desire to go into medicine.”
Though the worlds of golf and medicine may seem far apart, Alison tied them together, specifically though the environment created through Princeton’s golf program, mentioning service projects like the team’s working with the campus’s Unified Sports Group.
“It’s an intentional thought to think about your teammates on the golf course, to think about, how can we build trust and connection, even on the course when we’re playing individually?” Alison said. “I think we’ve always tried to lead with service in mind, especially embodying the university’s motto, too. That’s something that I’ve also really appreciated about being on Princeton’s team, where we’re valued so much more beyond who we are as athletes.”
To each other, Alison and Anabelle Chang have long been more than athletes. Now, Princeton has had the chance to know them for far more as well.
