Late last month South Georgia Tormenta FC was named 2022 Club of the Year by readers of Protagonist Soccer. The club won two national titles in 2022 - the inaugural USL W League championship and USL League One honors. The head coach of Tormenta FC’s men’s team is Ian Cameron.

The son of a former professional footballer, Cameron was a Scottish youth national player and had a short stint with Partick Thistle as a teenager. Following that, Cameron moved to the States to play soccer at Mercer University. A starting midfielder, Cameron played all four years while at Mercer which is located in Macon, Ga. After graduation, Cameron returned to Scotland to attend graduate school at the University of Glasgow before returning to Macon to take up the role of assistant coach of the men’s soccer team at his alma mater.

He spent three seasons with the Mercer Bears before being named head coach of the Eckerd College Tritons, located in St. Petersburg. After three seasons with Eckerd, Cameron was hired by Tormenta FC in the fall of 2018.

In 2019, the three-year-old Tormenta FC became a founding member of the Division III USL League One. Cameron was hired to coach the Tormenta FC 2 team which played in USL League Two as well as a coach in the Tormenta Academy. Tormenta FC created the Tormenta FC 2 team to act as the reserves for the professional squad. It was also formed to fill the void left when the first team moved from the PDL up to League One.

In his first year, Cameron led “Twomenta” to the USL League Two semifinals and a second round showing in the U.S. Open Cup. Late in the 2020 USL League One season, Cameron, just 32 years old, was elevated to the post of Tormenta FC’s head coach. Last season, Tormenta FC ended the regular season in third place and went on to win the 2022 USL League One title beating the Chattanooga Red Wolves in the final. Cameron’s team also made it to the U.S. Open Cup Round of 32 by defeating two USL Championship teams before losing to the MLS side Inter Miami.

Cameron’s busy year became a busy offseason as, just over a month after the USL League One final, his wife gave birth to a second daughter. Even during this hectic time, Cameron graciously sat down with Protagonist for an interview.

What has been the offseason routine for Tormenta and what have you been focusing on this offseason?

The offseason is always a strange thing to navigate. The continuity of training and that schedule is good for the players and staff. But you also want to invest time in your family. But we’re always going to be in a bit of a rebuild at Tormenta. We’ve had a successful year but some guys have moved on because there are new ventures for them. There’s some guys we’ve sold. So there’s always turnover because our club is catered towards being a platform club. Being a club that harnesses really good young talent. Let it flourish together. And then try to send it off into the higher ranks. Obviously there will be some returning guys under contract but that’s a bit of our model. So we have to accept even when we win a championship it will be a bit of a rebuild. And, that’s what we’re in the middle of.

What did it mean to win a championship at Tormenta?

It’s just a great privilege. It's a privilege for our staff to have the opportunity to work in the professional ranks. And to put a strong, combative technical team on the field. It was a terrific season. The group early on in the year had a feeling about it because of the open cup game that should we make the playoffs we’d be a very very hard team to play against in the playoffs. The challenge was that consistency throughout the year and with a slim squad to try to keep the levels of consistency there so that we could enter the playoffs and knowing that we’d be a very formidable opponent then. And that’s how it proved to be.

For our staff we had a three-year plan. Year one - embed ourselves in the league. We were just okay, not great. Year two - make a real playoff run. And year three - make a real run at the regular season. Thankfully year two brought us a championship in the playoffs. Year three is now can we be a bit more consistent throughout the year and mount a bit more of a challenge to actually unseat Richmond as the regular season champions which is indicative of consistency throughout the year.

Is there a different kind of pressure defending a title?

I can certainly say it’s pressure. I’ve got the exact same anxiety at the start of this year that I’ve had in previous years. I guess it is a different type of pressure. But I think you’ve got to harness both. When the pressure is you’ve not had a good year and you’re trying to move into securing yourself then with that pressure you’ve got to remember what was it you actually did well the year before that you don’t need to change. Even though you feel this pressure that the team has to move on.

What we’ve got to do this year is make sure that we recognize what does need to change even though we won the championship. So, it’s a different kind of recognition process - a different kind of analysis - to say don’t throw everything out that was going well. And then now make sure that we are progressing. Not all change is progress, but you can’t have progress without change. So, we have to make some minor tweaks to make sure that we’re moving forward and having a new championship campaign. I don’t want that feeling of not winning something at the end of this year. But if we’re gonna do that, it’s going to take a big effort from the staff, from the club, from the front office, from the players that return, and the new players that join us.

With the women’s side winning a trophy and the growth of the academy it feels like Tormenta has something special going on there.

To paraphrase our owner, we’re not going to expect to win a double every year. We’d like to. But it was a wonderful achievement from Jim [Robbins] and his staff and all the women who played for us in the summer. That was the first national championship for the club and the USL League One team thought “we want a taste of that.” So, it was pretty inspirational. I think both sides helped each other with that and our Academy did some special things last year with the guys and the girls that we’re coaching there.

For the club… look, I think you have to lay really good foundations. I think that comes from the owners. That comes from the environment. Players and coaches can come in with whatever intention they want, but environment will always trump intention if the environment is good or bad. And what we have here is a humble environment, a working class connection to our community, and it has born out of that great success in the infancy of the club. But our job is to keep that going and do both - be brilliant in the community and put a compelling outfit on the field. And if we can keep harnessing those things and stay to our roots I think the club will be just fine.

You mentioned the roster rebuild in the offseason. Any key spots that you’re focusing on to add talent?

Everywhere! There’s a group of players who our young staff have worked with for a few years now, all the way from the 2019 USL Two team. That group that’s been with us is disbanded now. Your Adrian Billhardt. Your [Curtis Thorn]. Josh Phelps was a mainstay of this organization since its inception. Those guys have flourished, culminated in a championship last year, but now it’s time for them to kind of open up the wings and fly and do special things beyond Tormenta. And it’s with our full blessing and we’re excited to track that.

So, we have in each division of the field a new dynamic. We’re going to have two or three of our starters in the back line are going to be new players. In our midfield, two of the three center midfielders are going to be brand new. Potentially one or two of the front line are going to be new. So, all through the ranks it’s going to be papered with new players. Some guys who have a lot of pro experience. Some guys who are brand new to it. But with that comes an excitement. With that comes an opportunity to teach a new evolution of players the “Tormenta way” on the field, off the field. And immerse them in it.

We won’t look like last year’s Tormenta team in the first couple of months of the season. But, it’s a new group and they need to evolve into the new face of Tormenta. And Tormenta will be this new group. Tormenta will be the new women’s group in the summer. Tormenta will be the new Academy group. So, it’s not what the teams in the past aren’t Tormena - this will become Tormenta. And whatever we can convince and suggest these young men and women to be and to give to the community and get out on the field, that will become what Tormenta FC is next and will become us. And we’re so excited to see which direction these young men and women take us in.

Is that one of the curses of success, for an organization, that it shines a spotlight on the players and they end up moving on?

During the recruiting process a big part of our project is to move guys and women on, right? That’s part of our plan. We say it. We’re ever so excited when they do it. I cannot lie. When we lose a couple of - the men are obviously under my jurisdiction - when we lose a couple of the men that we had on the team last year, there are a couple of days of mourning. There’s no doubt about it. Trying to envision the leadership of a group without Gabriel Cabral in the middle of the park is tough. Without the experience that Adrian and Phelps have given us and Curtis has given us. And the qualities they bring on the field. How they helped us win a championship. Jamil Roberts who scored the game-winning goal for us and scored pivotal goals along the stretch.

Trying to envision what the next evolution looks like… there’s a couple of days there where you’re like “Oof! I just like it to stay still!” But you can’t. You’ve got to keep moving. You have to, have to keep moving as an organization. You can’t stand in these guys’ ways.

That’s not to say that we give our players away. There’s guys under contract that I’m sure want moves - who the right contract hasn’t come in - who we’ll retain them this year and move it on. We’re not silly. We are a business. But we do try to do both and have everybody’s best interests; the club, the fans, and our player’s best interests at heart.

So, as a young staff, as a front office, we accept - Jim and his staff - we all accept that it’s a non-stop recruiting cycle. That we’re always going to have our finger on the pulse of who’s the next player to come through and wear the badge and push forward. And we accept that role.

If somebody comes to me and says “I want a four-year contract at Tormenta,” that’s a red flag. Why? You know, if you grow roots in this community and want to stay here it’s because the community means so much to you and your family? Brilliant! But if you’re coming in with that intention, we want people that are striving for their highest possible rung in the ladder that they can get to. And, that excites us. It’s part of our model. And we do get residual joy from watching Azaad [Liadi] make his debut for D.C. United; to watch what Marco [Micaletto] is doing with Columbus Crew; to watch Conner Antley at the Tampa Bay Rowdies at the phenomenal team over there. We get a lot of joy out there knowing that we were part of their journey. Opened the door. Whatever way you want to say. The club gets it and I know the ownership get a lot of joy out of that.

One of the additions for this season is Elijah Amo who came from the Maryland Bobcats. What are you expecting from him this first season with Tormenta?

Elijah’s a good player! We are always looking for some guys in the market who, for some way, shape, or form, are top caliber players in the way that we see the game but have fallen through the cracks somehow. Right? So Elijah had that situation. Because of the timeline of leaving Louisville mid-season and joining RSL mid-season it’s very, very difficult to step into an MLS organization halfway through the year and try to get traction.

So, there are sliding doors moments for players. And that sliding doors moment just didn’t quite work out for him. And in the Maryland Bobcats you had a brilliant organization who’ve done a tremendous job of picking up some of these guys in the market who are top caliber players, really good people, and given them a platform to shine. We took Jake Dengler from the Bobcats the year before. He had an outstanding season for us and we anticipate will have a very, very bright future.

And Elijah’s the next one in that mode. He’s quick, two-footed, willing to run at players, willing to run in behind, and in our system of play that our coaching staff really enjoy we put a lot of emphasis on wingers. On the front three keeping nice and high and wide, and.feeding them service and allowing them to be dynamic. And I think Elijah will fit right into that model. And whether he’s fine to start the game, whether he’s coming off the bench, well, see, that’s really up to him and his performances. But he has a brilliant opportunity as a group of three or four wingers in our team in an organization that puts a lot of emphasis on them to come and shine and fulfill his potential. And I think there’s a lot to get from the young man. I think he’s got more goals in him. He’s got more assists. And it’s our privilege now to get him to untap that a little bit.

Your organization is about to have open tryouts. What do you expect from those?

Every year’s a little bit different. In all transparency we’ve got some internal discussions just now on - is this the right time of the year for our open tryouts? We’ve considered, and it might still happen, where we place that again in the summertime to maybe bring guys on halfway through the season when we need some fresh legs and to bolster our USL Academy team which professionals can play in. And we’re trying to work on that new paradigm and work out how it best fits together.

In general, in open tryouts when we run them you never know. There’s a lot of good players out there that just have peculiar situations. Or have brilliant personalities and when you watch them on the field - just on the football? - OK, good player. But then when you have them in your environment you see this other side of their personality that shines, that flourishes. That makes you think, “Oof! We need a bit of that in our organization.” We need that humility. Or we need that bubbliness that they bring to the training ground.

So, it’s always a good chance to see what’s in your community. Allow people to come in to get to know our coaching staff a little bit. So, it’s always about marketing Tormenta. It’s always about providing opportunities. And it very much is about taking a look at what the pool of players are out there.

The CBA changes things a little bit. I think there’s pros to the CBA. I understand why the players have done it. I think a lot of great benefits will come from it. One of the downsides is just that it increases the barrier to entry for some of the guys on the peripheral of teams. But the league will figure out those kinks. And that’s where organizations like NISA do a very nice job of sweeping up some of these guys who are right on the bubble and giving them a platform. So, there’s a place for everybody professionally in the game. And, yeah, these kinds of platforms help us identify some guys that weren’t on our radar before.

- Dan Creel, with assistance from Dan Vaughn

Patreon subscribers can watch the raw video of this interview.