Taliyah “Tee” Headman is well-suited should she live out her dream of playing professional soccer at an international level.
She would prefer being on a team overseas because “I like to travel the world a lot,” said Headman, 17, a standout forward on the Tormenta FC Academy Under-19 girls team based in Statesboro.
Raised in a military family, the New Hampstead High School senior is an experienced traveler. Born in North Carolina, Headman soon moved to Okinawa, Japan, where her father, Owen Headman, served in the U.S. Marine Corps. The family later settled in Pooler, with her father now retired and her mother, Keisha, a civilian working in health care at area military installations.
Japan was where Tee first tried soccer at age 6, but she also credits another stopover, while staying with her grandmother in Jamaica, for instilling a love of the sport.
“We’d play on the concrete with other kids,” said Headman, who has three older brothers. “That’s when I really started to get into soccer. When I was Japan, I didn’t really understand what we were doing. But I just knew I was fast. ‘OK, get the ball.”
PHOTO: Tee Headman (right) battles for possession during a match with Tormenta FC Academy. | Courtesy of South Georgia Tormenta FC
She’s still fast. Just ask anyone trying to defend her in club soccer. Or opposing flag football squads tracking where she was on the field as an all-region player on both offense (wide receiver) and defense (safety) for New Hampstead’s strong program. Or those racing against her in the 100-, 200- and 400-meter sprints and in relays for the Phoenix’s track and field team.
PHOTO: Tee Headman of New Hampstead High School was named the Prep Sports Report Flag Football Player of the Week. | Prep Sports Report Archive
“Her finishing abilities and speed create the perfect equation for her as a striker,” Jason Bouchea, who coached Headman for two seasons with Tormenta FC (U16/U17), wrote in a correspondence with Prep Sports Report.
“Taliyah was a joy to coach,” Bouchea wrote. “She's a dedicated, incredibly hard-working player with a fantastic attitude. She's got a bright future ahead of her.”
Headman’s immediate future is competing in track and graduating from New Hampstead, as well as playing for the Tormenta FC Academy U19 in tournaments. She also will spend the summer with South Georgia Tormenta’s USL W League club, as she began training with the adult women’s squad two summers ago and is projected to be playing in matches.
A pipeline to Virginia
Next fall she will be reunited with former W League coach Jim Robbins, who guided Tormenta to the nationwide league’s championship in its inaugural season in 2022. Robbins was announced in February as the new head coach of the Virginia Military Institute’s women’s team, and Headman plans to sign with VMI in April after considering other offers including Kennesaw State and West Florida, she said.
Robbins coached Headman on Tormenta’s Development Player League squads, which are elite, women-only club teams that travel to play other DPL clubs in the Southeast.
“I wouldn’t have to rebuild history. I already have history with the coach there,” Headman said of playing for VMI.
She appreciates that Robbins so believed in her abilities that he created opportunities for improvement, such as practicing with higher-level squads like the W League and guest-playing for other programs.
“He knows how to break down a player just by looking at how you play,” Headman said. “He’ll automatically know your weaknesses without you having to tell him. With me, he knew I didn’t like to use my left foot. He would purposefully put me in positions where I had to, to where I could get comfortable with my left foot, and it worked.”
She also likes Robbins’ style in dealing with players when things don’t go well. He wants players to be self-motivated, asking themselves honestly if they’re given their best or have more they could do.
“He’s not the type, if you would mess up, he would automatically start screaming at you,” Headman said. “He’ll come to you and tell you to like, look, ‘We all know you messed up, you know you messed up. All you can do is fix it.’ You just live and learn.”
When she visited VMI in Lexington, Va., Headman liked the size of the campus and the food. She also picked up on the close bond of the players.
“Everyone gets along with each other,” she said. “They’re built on you’re not doing anything alone. It has to be together or else nothing will work. It has to be a group thing.”
Headman, who is taking two college-level courses at New Hampstead in medical terminology and English, plans to major in sports medicine and minor in psychology with the plan to become a physical trainer. That’s after she gives soccer her best shot.
Forward thinking
She plays forward and sometimes on the wing, but at one time, around age 10, her position was goalkeeper.
“Having to sit there and not do anything, it was kind of boring,” she recalled.
All that speed to cover ground over the pitch seemed wasted at goalie, but it wasn’t for long.
“It was only for that one day,” she said, laughing. “I really didn’t like it.”
She hasn’t been a goalie since.
“I knew it wasn’t for me,” Headman said. “I really started from defense and I had to build my way up to forward. It was kind of like I had to prove myself that I was a forward. I just stayed there.”
Her three brothers all played high school soccer in Savannah, with the oldest, Carlton, at New Hampstead and then Owen Jr. at NHHS and Woodville-Tompkins. Her brother TJ played at NHHS and for his freshman year in the fall of 2024 at Reinhardt University in Waleska, Ga.
TJ, at 21, is closest in age to Tee, and she credits him with teaching her a lot about soccer. They’re quite competitive with each other, whether it’s juggling the ball or sprinting up and down roads to see who is faster.
Tee said TJ only wins these sprints because he’s got longer legs. Reinhardt lists him at 6-foot-3 and she’s 5-8.
If she sounds like she hates losing, that’s true. She used the word “intensity” in describing why she loves soccer. She knows it’s possible to lose a game, “but we will only lose this game if we let ourselves lose this game,” Headman said.
“It’s like a mind game with the whole soccer thing,” she said. “It’s a physical battle of who’s better than who, and I kind of like the competition.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy South Georgia Tormenta FC,lead photo Natalie Martinez, and Prep Sports Report.
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