To her coach, she's one of the program's most driven athletes; to the athletic department, she was, until recently, a high school junior whose recruitment needed to be handled delicately in order to avoid accusations of impropriety; and to her parents, she's their 16-year-old darling miles and miles from home, the place she deserted one year early.
But to herself and her teammates on the women's soccer team, she's just Gwendolyn, one of a handful of electrifying additions that has helped the Blue Devils rejoin the nation's elite lists of soccer colleges.
Sure, she's young-the youngest athlete at Duke, in fact-and yes, she left high school in Pensacola, Fla. after only three years, but Gwendolyn Oxenham wants her legacy as a Blue Devil to be one left on the field at Koskinen Stadium. And right now, that's exactly what Duke's third-leading scorer is doing.
"She hates that people think of her as being so young," women's soccer coach Bill Hempen said. "She certainly doesn't play like that."
Still, for all the times her name has appeared in the box score, there has been that peculiar sidenote in her bio to cast a shadow over her scrappy work ethic and her flashy displays of frighteningly fleet feet. And that distinction rests upon a decision, her decision last spring to skip her senior year at Gulf Breeze High School.
It's a choice that has been received differently by two schools of thought: one incredibly proud of a person talented enough to compete both academically and athletically a year early at the collegiate level, and another equally critical of Gwendolyn and her parents for forfeiting what could have
"There was some opposition that I was missing out on the high school experience, but the opposition mainly came from the people who didn't know me very well," she said. "Everyone who was close to me or a part of my life thought it was the right decision."
Although everyone now agrees Gwendolyn made the right choice, it wasn't nearly so black-and-white when her club soccer coach, Peter Stevens, approached the Oxenham family mid-way through her junior year and suggested she leave high school one year early.
His logic was simple: in order to continue improving, Gwendolyn needed good competition, and that was something that neither playing for Stevens' Pensacola Samba nor staying at Gulf Breeze High had to offer.
The response from Randy and Ninalyn, Gwendolyn's parents, was equally clear.
"I told him to forget it," Ninalyn Oxenham said. "He told me she was capable of playing Division I soccer next year. I said, 'I don't care.' I didn't want to lose her a year early."
Dropped from discussion at the Oxenham household for several months, the issue resurfaced as the summer approached.
It wasn't really a choice of where Gwendolyn would go-Duke had been her dream destination since middle school. Instead, it was a matter of when. And as Gwendolyn became increasingly determined to leave, none of her family members or friends were going to try to stop her.
"Once I knew that it was something she wanted, we didn't want to stand in her way," Ninalyn said. "She's a very determined young lady."
And so, unlike her older peers on her club soccer teams who had been recruited to various colleges, Gwendolyn now had to take the initiative in the recruiting process. It began with a letter from the Oxenham family to Hempen, which the women's soccer coach promptly turned over to the athletic department in order to avoid violating recruiting guidelines.
"We had to treat her like a junior, which means we couldn't call her," said Hempen, who called the recruiting process with Gwendolyn "a unique experience to say the least." Hempen and Oxenham only talked five or six times last summer, but somehow it eventually happened, and the only coach in Duke women's soccer history landed the first player to ever join his program after only three years of high school.
"It was the best decision for my soccer game to come out a year early," Gwendolyn said. "I'm definitely happy with my decision, although I think it's hard on my parents because I'm very close to them and they had to lose me early."
Though they miss her, her parents still believe she made the right decision, and vacations in the Oxenham household now revolve around Gwendolyn's soccer schedule. And when Randy and Ninalyn can't make it into town for a game, there's always the daily e-mails (Gwendolyn says there are at least six a day) and the care packages, not to mention the pride of a daughter who has accomplished nearly everything she has dared to attempt.
"We really miss her, but we're happy knowing that she's so happy up there," her mom said. "She has such a camaraderie on that team that she did have at Gulf Breeze, but not to the same extent. There's not one iota of thought on anyone's part that we made the wrong decision."
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