Upcoming Event: Women's Soccer versus Pitt on October 2, 2025 at 7 p.m.
Women's Soccer
vs Pitt
Clough: Oxenham & Fergusson - Athletes as Globetrotting Artists
9/3/2007 12:00:00 AM | Women's Soccer
By Rob Clough, GoDuke.com
"It's not often you find an arena where you have 90 minutes to put everything you have into something ..."
That sums up the feelings and motivations of former Duke Soccer players Gwendolyn Oxenham (T '04) and former teammate Rebekah Fergusson (T '07), who are taking an unusual path after graduation. Combining their fierce devotion to the game they love and the art of documentary filmmaking that they developed at Duke, that duo is part of a quartet planning to travel the globe in search of pickup soccer games. Consider it “The Endless Summer” in spikes: a way for both to hold on to the game they've played their entire lives.
The documentary they're planning, called “The Soccer Project,” will showcase the sport from Latin America to Africa to Iceland to Asia, and many points in-between. They've managed to come up with funding for the first leg of their trip to South America, but will be looking for more solid financial backing once they're able to distill footage from their South American excursion.
This documentary will look at sport as a means of communication that crosses many cultural and linguistic barriers. As women, the gender barrier will be another consideration for many countries where women are not encouraged (or even forbidden in some places) to play sports. Wherever pickup soccer is being played, the Soccer Project will follow and document their experiences as three players (one man and the two former Duke players) try to join in the local games. Both players are putting the sum total of their Duke experience to work here, combining their athletic endeavors with their experiences at the Center for Documentary Studies.
How did this idea come about?
For both Fergusson and Oxenham, it started with their life-long devotion to the game.
"It was just a part of my life that I realized I couldn't live without,” said Fergusson. “Playing at Duke was a natural next step when I decided I didn't want to stop, and that I wanted to play at the highest level."
Musing on when she was drawn to the game, Oxenham quipped, "I was eight years old and so good at ballet that I was in the three- and four-year-old class. After my first Saturday watching my brother play soccer, I immediately appealed to my father to let me switch sports."
At the same time, both Oxenham and Fergusson had passions beyond the field. Oxenham is an accomplished writer.
"I always loved to write, ever since my third grade teacher had us write stories about our pet rocks,” Oxenham explained. “When senior year of college came and my career was over, I applied to creative writing school at Notre Dame ... Getting something down in words was the only thing that felt as good as kicking the hell out of someone."
Fergusson was inspired by a book that Oxenham wrote called “Essence Game,” which featured four different personalities on the soccer team.
“For the first time I realized that film and writing, and other modes of art and self-expression could be combined with the sport that had shaped me,” said Fergusson. “That's when I began to understand all the things I loved about soccer. I was always drawn to the competitive and active qualities of the game, but suddenly I began to notice the natural beauty of good soccer and good players. I noticed the unpredictable ways that soccer intertwines into people's lives. I noticed peoples' personalities on the field and off the field could be so similar, yet so different. The game and the field became a source of stories. It took me about a year after I came to Duke to follow in Gwendolyn's footsteps and start enrolling in Documentary Studies classes."
"Documentary filmmaking ... was a new way to tell a story,” Oxenham adds. “I also like the interplay between the two forms of storytelling -- how images help me find words and how words help me find images.”
Life at Duke
If Oxenham is taking an unusual life course with this trek around the world, it's only one of many interesting choices she's made. She came to Duke as a 16-year-old, where she was "too young to know I was young. On the field, I was actually more confident my freshman year than any other. There's that thoughtless cockiness you have when you're young. In the classroom, I was more intimidated. During my freshman year, I was under the impression that I played soccer in order to get into a good college, it took me a while to realize that I could do well. Socially, I was very shy, but I think I would have been shy whether I was sixteen or eighteen."
There was no question that Duke was where she wanted to be.
“Ever since I was six years old, I told people I wanted to play soccer at Duke,” said Oxenham. “It was a dream come true and during my four years, I loved all of it -- my team and coaches, my professors, the campus. I was also rather shocked by the idea that you could learn about whatever you wanted. In high school, I was a memorizer rather than a learner, but at Duke, I was enthralled by everything."
Fergusson is equally eloquent in describing her Duke experience.
"Duke gave me competitive soccer, the Center for Documentary Studies, my teammates, coaches, professors, and a million other things that have put me where I am now,” explained Fergusson. “Playing [at Duke] taught me how to commit sweat and pain day in and day out, how to play through frustration, how to lead younger teammates, how to win games, all those things that are a part of playing college sports. When I realized that I wanted to combine the stories I saw on the field and to collect them, or tell them, The Center for Documentary Studies introduced me to the idea of taking reality and editing it down to a piece of art. Both sides of campus have been good to me. All of my coaches and professors have given me endless support and access to incredible resources to help me develop as a soccer player and a documentarian."
She slyly adds, "You've got to love that word."
The Game Inspires The Art
Both Fergusson and Oxenham have already created art inspired by their passion for soccer. Oxenham's book, “Essence Game,” uses the sport as a device to delve into something deeper.
"In the way Norman Maclean uses fly-fishing to tell the story of his brother in ?A River Runs Through It,' I'm trying to use soccer the portray my brother and me."
At the same time, viewing the game through a writer's eye, "dwelling in its great moments, has increased my nostalgia for the game and my desire to play it everywhere I can." That wound up being a significant impetus for what became “The Soccer Project.”
Fergusson's initial forays into filmmaking were a bit more direct. One early film, “Staying Power,” was inspired by an assignment to "make a short film inspired by a place with little to no dialogue." Naturally, she chose a soccer field.
"The story began about the soccer field at Duke being prepared for a game -- mowing, setting up the goals, painting the lines,” she explained. “At the same time, a player is walking out of the bathroom toward the field. The player comes out and a game ensues, then the night fades back to day and the cycle of field maintenance begins again. Another player is getting ready to walk out to the field, this time followed by a ghost of the first player. The new player enters the gate, and ghost is denied entry (in a ?Field of Dreams' kind of way) and fades away. At that point in my life, the story was very much about my senior season, and how it would be my last. I realized, like many do in their senior year, that I only had a limited time, but that the Duke Soccer program would continue with a new season each year."
That sense of an athlete's awareness that their career is on borrowed time was brought even further to the forefront in another of her films, “Has-Beens.” This is a "documentary about three players, Gwendolyn Oxenham, Luke Boughen, and my teammate and '07 classmate, Rebecca Moros. It shows what it's like to make soccer your life, to live it, breathe it, but after your graduation to learn that the world suddenly wants you to let it go.
"Women's soccer is something at which a very select few people make a living, and upon graduation we are told to 'move on,' but for many of us, it's not that simple,” said Fergusson. “?Has-Beens' is about the way those three players keep soccer in their lives, and the way they look back on their careers ... still obsessed with the game, still wanting to live and breathe it."
This film was another impetus for “The Soccer Project.”
"We knew the story would be about players traveling around the world, and we also knew that in order for that story to work, those characters would need back-story and development,” Fergusson recalls. “So that project started as a way to understand where Luke and Gwendolyn came from as soccer players -- what their careers had been like, and what was driving them to travel around the world and play. Rebecca Moros added a lot to the piece as well, and it kind of took on its own life. Gwendolyn, Luke and I see that story as a jumping off point for ?The Soccer Project.' At some point during that semester we committed to work for however long it took to make the world soccer documentary a reality."
As former teammates, it's perhaps not surprising that Oxenham and Fergusson have become artistic collaborators as well. Trust is one of the most important aspects of team play, and is perhaps even more important when trying to work together on a film.
"We have trusted each other to tell personal stories, to edit interviews, to basically take creative license with our own words and images,” Fergusson notes. “That's a tough thing to allow someone to do. I'm excited to continue to work with her. I have always thought of her as someone from whom to get advice on writing and filmmaking. Personality-wise, we can be very different, but we have a lot in common when it comes to artistic vision."
Exploring the World through Soccer
Oxenham has first-hand experience in soccer's ability to break down barriers. She spent several months playing for a club team in Brazil, where "my team spoke no English and I spoke no Portuguese." She quickly learned to adapt.
"I got up in the morning, put on whatever clothes my roommate was putting on and just followed her out the door, never having any idea where we were going,” said Oxenham. “Sometimes it was church, sometimes salsa dancing, but most often the soccer field. It was crazy to have no words to communicate. Soccer allowed me to be fully enveloped in a culture so different from my own."
The group behind “The Soccer Project” was ambitious in the countries that they chose for their journeys. A lot of the choices are obvious:
England, Germany, Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, France. These are all soccer-crazed countries. However, they also chose some more unusual nations for their film.
They selected American Samoa, ranked last in the FIBA standings, because they wondered "if there are still pick-up games in the world's worst soccer country." They chose Iceland because of former teammate Thora Helgadottir ("a rock in goal for the Icelandic national team", says Fergusson). She used to speak of its beauty as well as the pick-up games that go on at 2:00 a.m. in full sunshine, thanks to the summer solstice. Ultimately, they thought it would make "a great backdrop for soccer."
Another unusual choice was Tibet.
"We have seen pictures of monks playing soccer in robes,” Fergusson explains. “If you search for images of soccer around the world you can find beautiful backdrops that are different for every continent, every country. Through all the different cultures, geographies, religions, races, etc., soccer is a common thread, and that is part of the story we are after."
Both players realize that they're taking some risks with some of their potential filming locales, including China, Iran, and Afghanistan.
"We'd be foolish not to be worried,” Oxenham sagely notes. “Naturally, we understand that it will be difficult. We're not trying to expose any countries but [rather] emphasize their place in the global soccer community.
"It's definitely a little anxiety-producing to think about the political situations in many of the countries we want to go to, but those stories are integral to the film,” Fergusson goes on to note. “You can find lots of soccer organizations and teams that are either born out of conflict or find a way to survive it. The Iraq National Team winning the Asian Cup is a perfect example.
"The story we want to tell is one about understanding, the power of soccer to bridge communication gaps, conflicts, and to unite strangers,” said Fergusson. “Before we travel to places in turmoil, we do a lot of research, and we find as many local contacts and organizations who share our goal and understand the story we're aiming for.
“In a little over a month, we will be in some dangerous crime-ridden parts of Rio de Janeiro, but all the people we have contacted about filming there want to do anything they can to help us get around and find soccer,” Fergusson concludes. "People have pride in their game, and they know that soccer can be a huge part of making places better."
Gender, The Art of Documentaries, and the Closest of Quarters
One of the stories that will be told in their film will be the tension between gender and sports, world-wide. Neither player is too concerned about fitting in to a male-dominated sport.
"I grew up playing with boys until I was 13 years old, and to this day I play pick-up with my brother and his friends for fun,” Fergusson recalls. “Gender has never been something that kept me from wanting to do anything, more often than not it's a source of competition, a chance for me to keep up with the guys on the field.
"But I do have to remind myself that in America the line between men and women is not nearly as strict as it is other places,” said Fergusson. “We want to test the gender boundary wherever we go, partly because we can. At the end of the day, the soccer speaks for itself and in doing so we make a statement about gender without ?saying' anything. I know that when I have played with boys you can start a game and let them make fun of you, but after a few tackles, and a few moves, they start to shut up and play a little harder because no one wants to get beat by the girl."
Oxenham concurs, noting, "I love playing soccer with men. In my past experience, there are cultures who assume you won't be able to play, but once you show you can, they're thrilled. Of course, there'll be countries (like Iran) where my presence won't be welcomed, but refusal to let me play will be as interesting to film as willingness."
Fergusson explains the film's potential structure.
"From the beginning to end, the consistent characters will be Luke [Oxenham's boyfriend and a former soccer player at Notre Dame] and Gwendolyn, so a part of the story will be who we are, where we come from. We will be linked by footage of us traveling in different situations, plane, bus, etc. Once there, we will join pick up games, filming the scenery, the tricks, the pregame, the postgame, the way players watch the game, looks of exhaustion, anticipation, and so forth.
"Just by being in those environments and being able to sit back and observe from behind a lens, stories will arise about different players we meet,” said Fergusson. “We want to know why it is they play, what makes them come to particular spots day after day, and what kind of relationships forge on the soccer field between strangers. Being able to see this same tradition in different countries and continents will give some insight to what it is I am drawn to about soccer."
On a wider scale, Oxenham explains, "I'm most stunned by the intimacy that soccer allows. Two strangers from completely different cultures can become close, all because they both can kick a ball. This will be a focus. We'll want to have an up and down tempo, moving between soccer superpowers and countries where soccer savvy might not be at its best, but where there are great stories of the connective force of the game. We don't want any heavy-handed verbal messages about soccer uniting the world. We think the images will do that for us."
In discussing the game's presence in America, both players are philosophical about the fact that the passion for the game here isn't as intense as it is in most parts of the world.
"As Simon Kuper mentions in his book ?Football Against the Enemy,' the only thing humans attend more than soccer games is church,” Oxenham notes. “When I hear Americans talk about how worthless soccer is, it makes us seem arrogant, like we're disinterested in the rest of the world. I think an awareness of the connective power of the game could create more interest in our country."
Fergusson believes that in order for the game to grow in popularity in America, development will be essential.
"I think that we need to develop the talent necessary for leagues like MLS to be appreciated by sports fans,” Fergusson explains. “At the same time, we need to develop soccer as a hobby, as a pastime, as something you do just because you love it. It's the passion for the game that our film has the power to affect. Just like ?The Endless Summer' helped create the image of the surf bum, we want the soccer bum to make it in America. It would be a great alternative/complement to the rigidity of youth soccer clubs and collegiate programs."
Fergusson expects to return from the trip transformed.
"Soccer skills, language skills, filmmaking skills, survival skills -- at the very least we are going to be required to get better in all of those areas, which is what makes this trip so awesome,” said Fergusson. “We are going to be dealing with a lot of stresses in the field that most filmmakers don't have to deal with, at least on their first film, and we are all up to that challenge. Traveling in such tight quarters will force us to learn about each other as well. I imagine by the end of three months, shooting soccer in the Andes in Peru, we'll be setting up camera shots and communicating directions almost telepathically."
Oxenham notes, "It will be close quarters, and possibly trying circumstances for three months, but those are small things compared to the feeling of chasing the game you love around the world."
You can follow Rebekah and Gwendolyn's progress at http://thesoccerproject.com. Those wishing to make donations to help fund the project will find information pertaining to contributions on the website.
Players Mentioned
D
/ Women's Soccer
M
/ Women's SoccerKieran Hall Postgame Vs. Wake Forest
Thursday, September 25
Kieran Hall Postgame Vs. Notre Dame
Friday, September 19
Kieran Hall Postgame Vs. Miami
Monday, September 15
Kieran Hall Postgame Vs. Virginia
Friday, September 12
