Author: Scott Adamson

Greenville FC opens inaugural season on Friday

By Scott Adamson
Adamsonmedia.com

If the weather forecast is correct, Friday in McDonough, Georgia, will be a beautiful night for The Beautiful Game.

And that means the stars will finally come out for the Greenville Football Club.

Five and a half months after it was formed, the Upstate of South Carolina’s entry in the National Premier Soccer League begins its inaugural season with a road match against Georgia Revolution FC.

The contest is set for 7:30 p.m. at Henry County High School Stadium.

“I think we have some strong leadership and experience, particularly down the spine of the team,” Greenville FC head coach Lee Squires said.  “(Defender) Willie Hunt has played professionally for years and has great leadership qualities.  And then the Furman guys, (defender) Dalton Souder and (midfielder) Danny Kierath, will be key with leadership and their home field advantage early on.”

The club rolled out its roster late last month, which includes goalkeeper Paul Tyson, defenders Lewis Norvock and Aiden Wixted, midfielders Miguel Teos, Julien Coulomb and Laurence Wyke, and attackers Ignacio Monchetti, Lee Wattam and Malcom Frago.

Hunt, a Greer native, has spent time in the North American Soccer League and United Soccer League. He played for the Atlanta Silverbacks from 2011-13.

“Of course we need our goalkeeper to be a big presence, too,” Squires said. “But each guy will be aiming to step up in their own way.”

The mixture of youth and experience sets the stage for a club that should be competitive – and entertaining – from the outset.

“I think we have a very balanced roster that is capable of adapting to different challenges and has the ability to win games in various ways,” Squires said. “All that matters early on is wins, and we’ve stressed to the players this week that we can add layers to our performances and create our identity or brand throughout the season.

“Bu with such limited time together before Friday’s opener, winning is all that matters. But I do think we will be very exciting to watch.”

The Revolution was formed in 2010 and began play in the NPSL a year later.

Last season the club struggled to a 3-4-11 overall record and was 0-3-9 in the NPSL, but looks to bounce back in 2018.

The squad is led by midfielder Scott Redding, a Wofford product, and features three other players who were on last year’s team; forward Devon Patterson, defender Adam McCabe and 2017 team MVP, defender George Rodriguez.

Steo Magennis, boss of the Georgia Gwinnett College Grizzlies, is in his first season as head coach of the Revs.

Both the hosts and visitors compete in the Southeast Conference Division of the NPSL South Region.

So how much scouting has Squires done on his club’s opening night foe?

“Honestly, very little,” he said. “Not to be disrespectful to the Revs, but we have so much going on with ourselves which has taken all our efforts and attentions.  We know the Revs will be strong opposition and well-coached and we need to be ready, but everything has been about bringing us together quickly. Also, every summer league team is largely different year to year, and no one has all of their players available yet, so there’s not too much to go on.

“We’ll be well prepared and ready for the challenge.”

Greenville FC begins the home portion of its schedule May 12 when Inter Nashville FC comes to Stone Stadium for a 7 p.m. start.

For ticket information, go to www.gvlfc.com.

When talking cereal, say no more than Cap’n Crunch

Every once in a while, Mary and I crave cereal.

Brain Farce is an alleged humor column written by Scott Adamson. It comes out basically whenever he feels like writing it. Follow him on Twitter @adamsonsl

We don’t want it for breakfast and we don’t keep it in the cupboard – we just occasionally have the desire to pig out on it while watching the ID Channel.

Last week, she decided she wanted Life while I always choose Cap’n Crunch. She has several different cereals in her rotation but not me; as far as I’m concerned, Cap’n Crunch is the only cereal.

There has never been a better blend of corn flour, sugar, oat flour, brown sugar, palm and/or coconut oil, salt, reduced iron, yellow 5, niacinamide, zinc oxide, yellow 6, thiamin mononitrate, BHT, pyridoxine hydrochloride, riboflavin, and folic acid.

I started eating it as a kid to get a sugar-jolt start to my day, and immediately fell in love with its golden crunchiness. Plus, Captain Horatio Magellan Crunch always seemed quite friendly and accessible.

(Yes, that’s his full name and the ship under his command in the S.S. Guppy. Many people confuse it with the S.S. Minnow, but that was the ship carrying Gilligan, the skipper, the millionaire and his wife, the movie star, the professor and Mary Ann and which is a crown on the shore of an uncharted desert isle. To the best of my knowledge, the S.S. Guppy was always incident-free and is currently docked where the rich Quaker Oats people keep their yachts).

Anyway, I decided to hop in the car head to the local supermarket so we would have something to gnosh on while watching another life-affirming episode of “Evil Lives Here.”

Once I arrived at the store I went straight to the cereal aisle and had no trouble finding a box of Life.

What I had did have trouble finding, however, was Cap’n Crunch.

Let me clarify this.

What I had trouble finding was original Cap’n Crunch.

You know why?

Because apparently the Cap’n has expanded his fleet.

There is Cap’n Crunch’s Peanut Butter Crunch, Cap’n Crunch’s Crunch Berries, Cap’n Crunch’s Oops! All Berries, Cap’n Crunch’s Sprinkled Donut Crunch, and Cap’n Crunch’s Blueberry Pancake Crunch.

What the hell?

I looked and looked and looked and couldn’t find just plain ol’ Cap’n Crunch.

There were what seemed like 500 boxes of Cap’n Crunch’s Peanut Butter Crunch, but that’s not what I wanted. I like peanut butter, but I don’t want it to crunch under any circumstances.

Something with “butter” in its name should never crunch.

Cap’n Crunch’s Crunch Berries looks like some Fruit Loops escaped and joined the Federal Breakfast Food Protection Program in hopes of blending in with regular Cap’n Crunch.

It didn’t work.

Cap’n Crunch’s Oops! All Berries? Nope.

It’s just all berries with no Cap’n Crunch in sight. It’s kinda like when you see a famous band playing at a state fair but the band doesn’t have any of the original members anymore.

Cap’n Crunch’s Sprinkled Donut Crunch, frankly, just seems ridiculous.

If I want a doughnut, I’m going to Krispy Kreme.

And finally, there’s Cap’n Crunch’s Blueberry Pancake Crunch.

Again, pancakes are sacred and should be treated as such.

As for original Cap’n Crunch, why on earth would you mess with perfection?

All it needs is milk (in my case, soy milk). Actually, it doesn’t even need that. You can rip open the box and eat it like a savage and I won’t judge you. I’ve done it before and I might do it again.

As far as you know, I’m doing it right now.

But being the flagship franchise, it should always be front and center. Instead, I had to root around all the other “specialty” Cap’n Crunch cereals before I finally found a box of the good stuff, where the man himself is saluting in one hand and holding out a cereal-filled spoon in the other – a spoon full of sugary joy.

In summation, I have nothing against those of you who buy and consume Cap’n Crunch’s Peanut Butter Crunch, Cap’n Crunch’s Crunch Berries, Cap’n Crunch’s Oops! All Berries, Cap’n Crunch’s Sprinkled Donut Crunch, and Cap’n Crunch’s Blueberry Pancake Crunch.

That is your right.

However, you’re wrong.

There is no substitute for Cap’n Crunch which – to me – is the one and only.

I’ve become a major fan of Major League Rugby

I spent 30 years working for daily newspapers, and I don’t think I wrote a single story about rugby during my entire career. In fact, the only times I even used the word was contextually – as in explaining how the Interprovincial Rugby Football Union merged with the Western Interprovincial Football Union to form the Canadian Football League.

Out of Left Field is written by Scott Adamson. It appears weekly and sometimes more frequently if he gets up in the middle of the night and can’t go back to sleep. Follow him on Twitter @adamsonsl

However, I’ve become a pretty big fan of the game since my retirement, and thanks to NBC Sports Network’s coverage of Premiership Rugby and Six Nations competition, I’ve gotten up to speed on its rules and a bit of its history.

But being a guy tucked away in the southeastern portion of the United States, I kinda wanted to have a circuit rooted closer to home.

With Major League Rugby, which began its inaugural season last Saturday, now I do.

And I like it a lot.

I watched the debut match on CBS Sports Network, an exciting contest that saw the Glendale (Colorado) Raptors beat Austin Elite, 41-26. And throughout the weekend I tracked the other two games (there are seven active clubs this season, including the Seattle Seawolves, New Orleans Gold, Houston SaberCats, San Diego Legion and Utah Warriors. New York and Dallas entries are expected to join in 2019).

I’m hardly an expert, and I’m sure those who follow rugby closely had some nits to pick, but I was impressed. I thought there was quality across the board and it made me want to put it in my regular sports-watching rotation.

I even decided the NOLA Gold would be my favorite team this year because, well, why not?

I won’t bore your with a rules breakdown; if you’re interested, you can fire up the ol’ Google Machine and find them for yourself. But my favorite sports are association football and American football, and it combines the best elements of both.

I like the fast-pace of the games and how rugby successfully balances brute physicality with great skill.

So why hasn’t pro rugby ever caught on here before?

Although the game itself has been around since the 19th century, it didn’t spawn professional leagues until the 1990s.

So to that end, it’s still in its infancy.

But while it enjoys a strong following throughout much of the rest of the world, it has seemingly been stuck in neutral in the U.S.

Before MLR, a league called PRO Rugby tried to gain a foothold back in 2016. However, that five-team organization lasted just one season.

MLR – which has a single entity structure – has placed flagship franchises in hotbeds of the sport, and is attempting to build on the strong amateur rugby infrastructure of its communities.

The Gold, for example, is spawned from the New Orleans Rugby Football Club, which was formed in 1973 and has won several amateur championships during its existence.

And while there are some international players dotting the rosters (each team is allowed five), there are many more who have come up through the ranks of elite American-based clubs.

The result is a league that is serious about making pro rugby in the United States stick, and I hope MLR has found a recipe for success.

It’s certainly off to ambitious start; landing a TV contract right out of the gate was no small feat.

I plan to watch the Glendale vs. Seattle match on CBSSN this Saturday. In fact, I’m going to try to watch as many contests as I can going forward, because it’s worth my time and interest.

You might discover it’s worth your time and interest, too, if you give it a shot.

It’s a great sport with great players, and perhaps one day it’ll have even more franchises scattered across North America.

In the meantime, Geaux Gold.