Just two days before the start of the Ivy League tournament, Princeton star Kaitlyn Chen turned in a draft of her senior thesis. A medical anthropology major, Chen is writing on the relationship between sports and meritocracy. More specifically, she’s researching how socioeconomic status influences accessibility to certain sports, and how that translates to college athletics recruiting. She admits, rather humbly, that she is still figuring out parts of her argument, such as how to square the financial barriers athletes have growing up with the hard work they put in. She’s written about 70 pages. “I’ve still got a lot of editing,” she said. “Stuff to take out and put in.”
Chen played four sports growing up in San Marino, Calif. By high school, she settled on volleyball and basketball. The latter was always her favorite. Like many Angelenos, the Lakers’ back-to-back championships in 2009 and 2010 helped cement her interest in the game.
The 2023 Ivy League Player of the Year, Chen is approaching her final stretch with the Tigers. They have made five consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances as an automatic qualifier after winning their conference tournament, including this season’s Ivy championship over Columbia. The past two seasons, they won their first round…
