The Only Preseason Rankings You Don't Need

This is not an original idea. I have to give full credit to Craig Calcaterra, who used to write for NBC before they shut down their baseball coverage and he now writes a subscription newsletter. I'm completely stealing this from him and going with the approach that it's easier to ask for forgiveness from him than permission. 

For the past decade he's posted his handsomeness rankings of all 30 Major League Baseball managers. It seems enjoyable enough and so I thought I'd do the same for the League One managers heading in to the 2024 season.

You can get preseason predictions and rankings from those other sites with their research and their data and experience. Heck, even the league's website publishes power rankings based on things like team performance. 

All that is to say if you're looking for preseason rankings based on players and expected performance, there are plenty of places to go get that. If you're looking for who the league's most handsome manager is, well, to my knowledge, this is the only place to get that kind of detailed analysis. 

First, some things that need to be clarified before we go further.

1. Handsomeness is subjective. Your rankings may vary (to the extent you've ever considered ranking the handsomeness of the USL League One Managers). If you want to tell me that someone should be ranked higher or lower,  I won't argue with you. 

2. The woman who finishes last in the Miss American Pageant is still beautiful. The Manager who finishes last in the Handsomeness Rankings is still handsome. Beauty is all around us and we should appreciate it in all its forms.  

3. We're going to get weird and not take ourselves all that seriously. I'm posting this in the early stages of this blog's life as a way to set the tone of what it's going to be. We'll cover games and players but we're going to head in some strange places in the name of fun. 

4. Hopefully this becomes an annual thing. Ideally everyone returns for 2025 and I can just rerun the list, but with new teams coming in to the league, that can lead to a shake up of the rankings. 

So what research went in to this? Well, at first I thought I'd just use the photos on each team's website and go off of that, but in my brief searching I couldn't find everyone's all that quickly and even the ones I could find didn't really tell me all that much. So I simply put each manager's name followed by their team into Google Image Search and scrolled through the photos. 

When I told my wife what I was working on, she insisted that she be a part of it. I'm going to assume she just likes looking at handsome USL1 managers because she rarely takes an interest in what I'm writing. 

So without further delay, I present to you the inaugural Stormwatch912 USL League One Manager Handsomeness Rankings. (All links should pop open a new tab)

12. Dominic Casciato - Union Omaha - Someone has to be last in this case, it's Union Omaha's Dominic Casciato. He's a fine looking man and has the eyes of someone who looks like he cares deeply. Fun fact about Casciato is that he doesn't have a Wikipedia page so I can't look up any fun facts about him. What are we doing, Omaha? This man needs a wikipedia page. 

Don't feel too bad for Casciato. He was the League One Coach of the Year after basically going half the season without a loss and leading the Owls to the top regular season spot in 2023. 

11. Rick Wright - Greenville Triumph - Wright looks like a cuddly grandpa who bounces his two-year old granddaugher on his knee as he regales her with tales of his participation in the 1976 Olympics for the United States. Of course, I couldn't find that information on Wikipedia as he also doesn't have a page. The man was an Olympian. How does he not have a Wikipedia page?

I'm sure in his younger days, Wright was a handsome fellow, but time comes for all of us. It's not a bad thing. We should all be so lucky to get older and be able to be active and doing what we enjoy. 2024 will be his first year as the manager of Greenville.

10. Darren Powell - Lexington SC - I think I had the most trouble figuring out where to rank Powell. The primary reason for that is the google image search didn't pull up a lot of results and the ones that are there almost all seem like they came from the same photo shoot when he was announced as head coach.

Judging from the pictures alone, he looks like the fun uncle that intimidates you at first but then you get to know him and he's talking Fortnite and Madden with the teenage nephews while the other adults are off discussing the debt ceiling or those clowns in Congress or the new chain restaurant that's coming to town. 

9. Mike Jeffries - Charlotte Independence - Jeffries is 62 years old. You know how I know this? Because he has a wikipedia page. The man looks good for 62. Scratch that. The man looks good. If you'd told me he was 10 years younger, I'd have believed you. The salt-and-pepper short hair works for him. 

The glasses look also really works for him. You have to scroll down a bit to get a good photo of him in his specs, but he really pulls it off. Now I'm curious as to his team's record when he wears glasses and when he doesn't. Someone from Charlotte get on this. (I'm now imagining some intern for Charlotte who was all excited about getting a chance with the Independence and his first job is to go back and look at all the games to see if Jeffries had his glasses on or not. My apologies to you if you're that intern.)

8. Mark McKeever - One Knox - McKeever is two months older than me and I'm jealous of how good he looks. I'm also jealous that he played in the Premier League and Knoxville seems like a cool place to live so he's got a lot going for him. 

On the handsomeness front, he appears to be gregarious and fun with a smile that says "lets go out and have a few beers, eat some wings and watch the game."  I do think the beard adds a sense of authority and maturity to him as without the beard it looks like he might have a babyface and give the appearance of being five years younger than he is. 

Also, his Wikipedia page has no mention of him as the coach for One Knox (or anything after his retirement from playing in 2009.)

7. Jermaine Jones - Central Valley - Most of the photos of Jones are from his playing days, which makes sense as he was still playing in MLS as recently as 2017 and hasn't coached a game yet for Central Valley. He's not as young as he once was (still younger than me, not that I'm jealous). 

If tattoos are your thing, then you're in luck with Jones. They're not my thing but the world doesn't need to cater to my interests. It's a great big world out there and we all strive to find something that works for us. Jones' first match with Central Valley will be against Tormenta. Maybe seeing Jones up close will give me new perspective on where he fits in these rankings, but we can only go with what we have at the time, so here Jones sits.

6. Darren Sawatzky - Richmond Kickers - I know nothing about Sawatsky. I've never met the man in my life. Other than reading his wikipedia page, I couldn't tell you anything about him. But I'm scared of the man. It's not his fault. It's just that every picture that shows up makes him seem like the angry dad who just discovered you totaled the family's Ford Focus and now he has to go replace the car and trying not to overreact and ground you for a six months.

Despite that, he is a handsome guy. A little graying in the goatee and a tight haircut is a look he's pulling off. And I know Richmond likes their red, but from the photos, he needs to be wearing all back on the sidelines. He's absolutely pulling that look off. 

5. Matt Glaeser - Forward Madison - Do you need someone with a gruff exterior who, on the inside, has a heart of gold? The guy in the romantic comedy that's not the lead but the guy you know the girl should end up with? He works as the handy man at the bed and breakfast and catches her eye while her good-for-nothing fiancé is buried in his phone for work on their romantic getaway like he always is. Is that what you need? If so, do I have some good news for you as Madison's Matt Glaeser fits the bill. (I actually don't know if he has a heart of gold, but just go with it. You've made it this far, it's not like you didn't know what to expect.)

With his dark hair and full beard, he's a cuddly teddy bear. The rugged, outdoors look works. Give him a flannel shirt and let him sit around a campfire and he's ready to be your pitchman in a Toyota 4Runner commercial.

4. Leigh Veidman - Spokane Velocity - I'm as surprised as you are that an 22-year old can coach in League One, but here we are. 

Wait, wait. I'm being told that Veidman is actually 35, but I see he was born in 1988 but there's no way that 1988 was 35 years ago. Nevertheless, Veidman is Spokane's first Manager as the team joins USL1 this season. He's fresh off a stint as an assistant coach with Charleston Battery who lost in the USL Championship, errr, championship game last year. (They want you to say title, but I'm not going to do it.)

You're not here for his bio. You are here for his handsomeness, so lets go. In some photos, he's got a boyish charm. In others, he manages to look like the ring leader in a heist movie. I'm not saying he's George Clooney in the Oceans movies. But if you told me there was an Oceans knockoff movie in which a soccer manager recruited players to his "team" as a cover for a bank heist and Veidman was cast as that manager, I'd believe you, and I'd watch that movie.

3. Ian Cameron - South Georgia Tormenta - Another Manager born in 1988, a year I have distinct memories of and still refuse to believe was 35 years ago. Despite my refusal to believe how math works, Cameron takes the bronze medal for USL1 handsomeness. (For the record, my wife had him ranked higher than this.)

I mean, look at this photo. Tell me that's not the guy who shows up in some overly produced cologne commercial with the name like "Oxygen" that's full of silhouettes behind flowing white curtains and a breathless voice over saying "Oxygen. Breathe him in."  

My oldest comes with me to every game and stands next to me while I interview Cameron and the players. I think my wife is jealous of both of us that we get to talk to Cameron so often. 

2. Scott Mackenzie - Chattanooga Red Wolves - This isn't because of one photo as Mackenzie is, objectively, a handsome man. But there was one photo from my search that certainly catapulted him to near the top of this list.

It's also his twitter header photo. It's this one here.  Presumably that's his young daughter in his arms that he's carrying across the field at the end of a match. I'd like to tell you for sure that's his daughter, but he doesn't have a wikipedia page and I wasn't about to send him, a person I'd never talked to before, a message on Twitter and say "Is that your daughter in that photo with you?" and then not explain why I'm asking because I'd be embarrassed to say I'm writing a blog ranking the handsomeness of USL1 managers. So I'm going to hope that is his daughter and we're going with that. 

Even putting that photo aside, the man exudes confidence. He's a good looking guy. There's no shame in finishing second in these rankings. 

1. Eamon Zayed - Northern Colorado - The Hailstorm had it good last year. They finished third in the league in the regular season, just three points out of the top spot. Trevor Amann just scored again while I was typing this. Arthur Rogers led the league in assists and somehow stopped by my home office to assist me in writing this. Sure, Amann and Rogers have moved on, but they still have Eamon Zayed roaming the sidelines as the league's most handsome manager for 2024 so all is not lost for Hailstorm fans.

What can you say about Zayed? Every photo of him in my cursory search makes me go "that's a good looking guy." He always looks sharp, especially in the sweaters on the sidelines. (I don't recommend sweaters in South Georgia in August when Northern Colorado plays Tormenta.) Even wearing a hoodie at what I assume to be a training session, the guy looks good. 

Despite his Twitter bio saying to DM him for media inquiries, I did not reach out to get his reaction to this honor. "Hi, you don't know me, but you finished first in my USL1 Manager Handsomeness rankings and I was wondering your thoughts on that?" seems like a surefire way to get blocked and perhaps get an uncomfortable phone call from someone at Northern Colorado or from the USL League One office about media professionalism.

 I will go to bed believing that he's humbled by receiving such an honor but knows that getting to the top is one thing, but it takes work to stay on top.