This summer, the Meredith community will explore the world through the lens of pickup soccer games in “Finding the Game,” by Gwendolyn Oxenham.
Oxenham, who was a starter and leading goal-scorer on Duke University’s soccer team, became the youngest Division I athlete in NCAA history at age 16. When the women’s professional soccer league ended shortly after Oxenham graduated, her U.S. soccer career was over. First, she played professionally for a Brazilian women’s soccer team, and then she earned an M.F.A. in creative writing. “Finding the Game” and the accompanying documentary follow Oxenham and her friends around the world in search of pickup soccer, reflecting a unique combination of her writing and athletic skills.
In “Finding the Game,” Oxenham describes pickup games in 20 different countries, including Bolivia, Kenya and Iran. The publisher’s description calls the book “an entertaining, heartfelt look at the soul of a sport and a thrilling travel narrative.”
Meredith’s Summer Reading Program is in its 15th year. The Summer Reading Program was created to enhance the academic climate on campus and to engage incoming first year students in a shared intellectual endeavor with the entire campus community, including students, faculty, staff and alumnae.
