Stormwatch912

Same, Bolt. Same. So this is hard. My North Star of this blog, my guiding principle, is that sports are supposed to be fun. We can take them seriously and while there's a lot I've learned about how the world works through sports, we start watching and we keep following sports primarily because they're enjoyable. I like watching athletes do incredible things and, I'm assuming that if you're reading this, so do you. On this blog, I've ranked cities based on where I'd like to vacation, I've written preseason game stories like I was writing for a newspaper in 1910 and I annually rank the handsomeness of the USL League One Managers. It's all (hopefully) in good fun because the whole reason we all keep doing this is because we enjoy it. There's a reason I ask my oldest to try to guess the Tormenta starting lineup and gave it the grandiose title of "America's Favorite Game" despite the fact that literally only one person in the country pla...

Photo Credit: Tormenta FC Tormenta's USL-W League schedule is out and if past seasons are any indication, there's a game you're going to want to circle on your calendar. South Georgia is once again in the South Atlantic Division with several familiar foes including the SC United Bantams, NC Fusion, Charlotte Eagles and nemesis North Carolina Courage U-23. New this year is Port City FC out of Wilmington, NC.  What that means is an imbalanced schedule where Tormenta will play some opponents twice while playing others only once during their 12-game regular season.  Unlike the USL League One season that stretches from March to October and you have a chance to build momentum and develop over the course of the season, the W-League is a sprint from the get go. Tormenta will play those 12 games in basically six weeks, opening on May 14 at SC United Bantams while ending the regular season on June 27 at Port City FC.  Tormenta opens with three straight road games before their home ...

Welcome back to the third annual USL League One Most Handsome Manager rankings. I can’t believe this will be the third year of such nonsense, but here we are.  If this is your first time here I’m glad you’re joining us. And I’m sorry.  Read on and you'll understand. I do this for a couple of reasons. First is because it’s kind of fun to put together each year. Second, it’s actually helpful for me to do a little research on all the managers. I mean, how else would we have found out last year that Knoxville’s Ian Fuller’s Honeyfund site was still active and you could leave a comment in the guest book. I mean, there’s no reason we should know that, but sometimes you come across something and just have to share it. (I did not leave a comment.) With this being the third year, we have a few interesting wrinkles on the list. First, we say goodbye to a few managers from last year. Dominic Casciato (Omaha), Rick Wright (Greenville), Adrian Forbes (Texoma), Dave Carton (Westchester...

  Hi and welcome back to a weekly wrap up of Tormenta news. I keep hoping to get out to practice but it hasn’t worked out yet for me and I feel bad about that. Hopefully I can get out there soon and actually meet some of the guys and talk to the coaches and do some actual reporting and newsgathering. Until that time comes, we’ll do a weekly wrap up of Tormenta news as we continue our slow march to March 8 and the season opener. Where to start? US Open Cup Let’s start with the US Open Cup, which announced the first round games for the 2026 edition. Tormenta will be kicking off the whole shebang as they host (takes a deep breath) FC America CFL Spurs on March 17 at 6 p.m. That will be the first game of the opening round, so for at least 30 minutes, the eyes of the US Open Cup world will be on Tormenta Stadium. The two teams met back in the first round of the 2024 US Open Cup with Tormenta coming away with a 1-0 win on a Nick Akoto early goal. South Georgia advanced to the third roun...

  We are back for the start of my fifth season covering South Georgia Tormenta and one of these years I might actually start to feel like I know what I’m doing. Until that time I’m going to keep churning out these posts in the hopes that no one calls me on it. It’s been another busy offseason at Tormenta, as is their custom, with a couple of transfers out to USL Championship, others leaving at the end of their contract, several returning players and a host of new faces set to take the field for South Georgia in 2026. Let’s take a look at the offseason so far for Tormenta and what that portends for the 10th year of South Georgia Tormenta soccer. This is the first offseason Manager Mark McKeever has been at the helm of Tormenta. However, recruiting players to Statesboro was going to be one of his responsibilities when he was initially hired by Tormenta midway through the 2025 campaign, so this wasn’t an entirely unforeseen expectation of his. So how has it gone so far? Well, seven pl...

Photo Credit: Tormenta FC Being a sports fan is inherently a selfish endeavor. We spend our time, our treasure and, more than we'd like to admit, our emotional well-being investing in a team. We follow the players and, here at Tormenta, get to know them during their tenure here. We watch them grow and develop and that's all well and good, but we want to see them win games for South Georgia. And there are players that you're going to grow attached to. Whether that be because of some connection we forge with that player or just because we like how they play or they signed an autograph for you, we want them to be here year after year. The baseball postcast Effectively Wild has a term for this. They call it the "Jersey Guy." It's the jersey you can buy your 10-year old niece or nephew and feel confident they can wear it for a few years because that guy is going to be around for a few years. What kid wants to have the jersey of the guy who got traded four months af...