Soccer in Savannah: Savannah is fielding two boys teams (Under 15 and U-13) in this elite national league’s South Atlantic region, encompassing Georgia, South Carolina and Tennessee.

NATHAN DOMINITZ: Local soccer teams take on region's best

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Courtesy of Brian Okumu

Brian Okumu is program director of Savannah United Super Y soccer.

By Nathan Dominitz

Eventually, the best way for young athletes to improve is to improve the competition.

They must look outside of local leagues and cast a much wider net into a deeper talent pool. For the youngster and his or her family, that means the inconvenience of travel at steeper costs of time and money and other sacrifices in the pursuit of a goal and, perhaps, a dream.

Families make such commitments in various sports through travel teams, some based in Savannah, many in the metropolitan Atlanta area. It takes a larger crop to produce sweeter cream.

For soccer players, this is where the Super Y, as in Youth, League comes in. For the first time, Savannah is fielding two boys teams (Under 15 and U-13) in this elite national league’s South Atlantic region, encompassing Georgia, South Carolina and Tennessee.

These are not load-up-the minivan, drive-all-night, play-all-day tournaments.

These are scheduled home-and-home series between all-star squads played from June to August. The first games for the U-15 team, called Southern Soccer Academy of Coastal Georgia, are June 15 in Nashville and June 16 in Knoxville.

“We try and get kids from all over Savannah and the surrounding areas, regardless of which club they’re affiliated with,” said Brian Okumu, the program’s director and coach of the two squads. “We try to get the best of the best kids.”

When Okumu held tryouts in April, local players had an opportunity to play for an elite team here instead of driving to Atlanta multiple times a week just for practice, let alone games. It worked in reverse, as well, as players from Atlanta, South Carolina and even as far as Valdosta tried out for Savannah’s two 20-player squads.

“It’s not easy to have a Super Y team,” Okumu said. “You can’t wake up one morning and say, ‘We’re going to have a Super Y team.’ We were lucky because you have to have a certain number of kids in your club. Our club is big. The merger happened recently, so we have quite a lot of players to pick from.”

Yes, the merger, announced last month of leagues Savannah Celtic FC and the Coastal Georgia Soccer Association into the soccer-traditional and less wordy Savannah United. Okumu came to Savannah about seven years ago to coach for Savannah Celtic and moved over to CGSA a couple of years after that. With local players leaving to play in Atlanta’s Super Y program, he saw a void here and started making phone calls. The goal is developing players for college and, ultimately, U.S. national teams.

“The key is trying to get the kids to play year-round,” he said, “because if you want to compete with the rest of the world, our kids have to start playing year-round.”

Okumu started with two age groups that are deep with talent, and hopes to add girls and more boys teams in coming summers. The teams need sponsors, as some players can’t afford the costs, but Okumu would like them to have this opportunity. Prospective sponsors can email him at CoastalSuperYcoach@gmail.com.

“We have good players,” Okumu said, noting that each region champion qualifies for a national tournament in Bradenton, Fla. “It will take time for us to compete in this tournament. I’m not saying it’s something we can’t do this season. It’ll take hard work. But anything is possible in soccer.”

Global game

Okumu, 35, is living proof of that. Born in Nairobi, Kenya, he not only played soccer year-round, it was “every single day of my life.”

“We didn’t have structured (leagues) like here — by the time you’re 4, everything is structured,” he said. “There, we just had a ball.”

Well, it was spherical — a clump of paper grocery bags tied together with rope and played in the streets by barefoot boys. Okumu eventually did play in an organized league (i.e. T-shirts and soccer balls were provided), and then as a freshman for his high school team — no small feat, as the Kenya national team’s captain was a senior on the squad.

Okumu’s talent and desire carried him onto several national age-group teams, and then Kenya’s squad which fell short of qualifying for the Olympics, and then to one of the top club teams in Africa.

Then, when he was 22, he got a call from a men’s soccer coach he didn’t know, from Milligan College, which he never heard of. The NAIA school is in Johnson City, Tenn., and Okumu had no idea of where that was in America.

But he listened. A friend and former teammate was on Milligan’s team and had recommended him to the coach. Within a month of Milligan making a scholarship offer, Okumu was leaving, sight unseen, for Johnson City.

All he carried with him was a backpack with some clothes and soccer gear. He also had no idea about seasonal weather in the Appalachian Mountains of Tennessee.

“The first time I saw snow, I was so excited,” he recalled. “I was running out in the snow. The second day, I was like, forget this. ... It is cold. I don’t do cold weather.”

But could he play soccer, and starred for four years on stellar squads. He earned a degree in computer information systems before deciding that computers weren’t for him.

“I’m not a cubicle guy,” he said.

Instead, he wanted to be outdoors coaching soccer, and earned his certification. He coached high school teams in Johnson City before learning of the coaching job at Savannah Celtic. It doesn’t snow in Savannah, so he was on board, as were his wife, Karen, whom he met in Johnson City, and their children.

Okumu has made a life in soccer, and now he’s helping others for their futures in the sport. It takes commitment and sacrifice, but not at the expense of the joy of playing.

“Basically, my philosophy is kids have to have fun,” Okumu said. “If they don’t have fun, they won’t do it.”

Nathan Dominitz is a sports reporter for the Savannah Morning News. Contact him at 912-652-0350 or nathan.dominitz@savannahnow.com.