STATESBORO, Ga. --- Sometimes, giving an opportunity a second chance in life may be the one that opens up the right door. For sophomore forward Ryan Holmes, giving America a second chance would be the best decision he would ever make.
A native of Milton Keynes, England, Holmes grew up in a tight household with his parents, Claire and Simon, and his lone brother, James. While he grew up in a close-knit and supportive household, he was met with a tough decision that nearly all children in England would be faced with: what football club to support. His hometown is situated right between Birmingham and London, giving him loads of clubs to choose to support from a young age. He would choose to support The Gunners as it would be his uncle that would get him to don the red gear of Arsenal.
Like many in England, Holmes grew up playing soccer. He started from an early age as well, joining the Milton Keynes (MK) Dons academy at the young age of seven and playing for eleven years until he was 18. While he knew of, and was even told, of his weaknesses, it pushed him that much harder to become the player he wanted to be.
"I was there my whole life," said Holmes on the MK Dons. "I didn't know anything but that team. I had a bit of a dropoff when I was around eight to ten. If I'm honest, I wasn't very good, and the coaches let me know that. They told me 'you aren't really good enough; you need to work on this, you need to work on that.' By the time I was 12, I was 'good enough', per se. That was when I knew that I wanted it, like, badly."
While Holmes succeeded at the Dons, he was not given a pro contact, forcing him to think about what would come next in his life. Originally, this path that Holmes is on now was not in his plans, as staying home was more of a priority then. Even his career interest was vastly different from his current mindset.
"I actually wasn't going to come to America. I said I wanted to go to school back home and get a degree in sport science to be an athletic trainer. When James, my older brother, came over here [America], he loved it. Every aspect, like the school and being able to still play soccer, was just perfect. And so I thought maybe I should give that a go again."
Four years prior, Holmes first moved to the U.S. to play for William Carey University in Hattiesburg, Miss. However, after not even seeing the pitch for the team in his short few months time there, Holmes knew the situation was not for him.
"I didn't like it there," said Holmes on his early U.S. experience. "It just wasn't for me , and I said to my mom I wanted to go home. I went back and worked in an Amazon warehouse for three months and then January came and I moved to SCAD with my brother because he was there since the summer."
Family means everything to Ryan Holmes. It was at this difficult point in his life, with dreams of playing soccer and finding success in America, where Holmes had the utmost support from his family behind him. For any parent, seeing one of their children chase their dreams thousands of miles away in a new country is one of the hardest things to accept. For the Holmes', they were both given their full support when both decided to chase their dreams in the U.S.
"They said go," said Holmes of his parents' support. "My parents never stopped me and James from doing much. If that's what we wanted to do, they said they'd support it. Literally anything, whatever the situation was, my mom and dad just wanted us to do what makes us happy and we'll find a way to help that."
Moving to Savannah with his brother would end up being one of the best decisions Holmes would ever make. Not only would he launch his soccer career and find joy in playing alongside his brother, but grew to love the city of Savannah and all of South Georgia. Holmes spent his freshman season at SCAD, and summed up his experience in one word.
"Unreal," said Holmes on the chance to play with his brother. "You can't get a better dynamic than that. He played as the ten behind me, and we didn't even have to talk to each other. He would just play balls to me and I'd be there."
Through his talent and the on-pitch chemistry with his brother, he exploded for a team-high 15 goals while starting in every match of the season for SCAD. Along with being named both the Freshman and Overall Player of the Year in the Sun Conference, Holmes was an NAIA First-Team All-American. Also at SCAD, he would make another important decision regarding his career. While most of his teammates were studying advertising, Holmes followed down a different path.
"I always like the way I dress and what shoes I've got on and whatnot, so I said 'why not'. I didn't know that I wanted to go into fashion, then I got to SCAD and I wanted to study it." explained Holmes. "I took the first couple of classes and I knew it would be a lot of work, but I stuck with it and now I really enjoy it."
If it was not for soccer, Holmes wants to stay in sports for a career. Originally, he wanted to work as a sports trainer, but now his love for fashion has him thinking differently. Because of it, he would love to work with teams to design apparel for them. At Georgia Southern, his current major is Fashion Marketing and Apparel Design, and it was this major that helped the Eagles land such a high-caliber player in Holmes.
"Most of the schools I spoke with didn't really pitch the whole design program that well. For most of them, they probably didn't have it, whereas Lee [Squires] recruited me here and knew everything about me… I spoke to a lot of schools who tried to fill out the paperwork, and then came back to me and said that nothing is going to transfer. Here, everything worked out. We have a design department, which is great and it's only around 45 minutes from Savannah and so I'm close to all my people as well."
This past summer, Holmes, along with a multitude of other Eagles, went around the country to play for USL2 teams. Holmes and his fellow teammates Kevin Pierre and AJ Pama landed at Dothan United, a tight-knit community in southern Alabama. That summer would be one that Holmes would never forget.
"It was unbelievable," said Holmes on his experience. "It's always felt normal for there to be a good team around me, but some of my teammates at Southern told me that's not normally how it is. There's usually cliques and people from the different schools sticking together, but it was really nice there…. The community in Dothan is phenomenal. As much as that town has some stuff to do, that team is what everyone loves. It could be a Tuesday night and storming, and you'd have people waiting in their cars just to watch us. That's what that town needed, is just something to get the people behind, and that was what we were."
However, later in his summer season, he suffered an injury that would not only make him miss the USL2 playoff run that Dothan went on, but also miss the first few games of the Eagles' 2025 season. Despite this, he learned to lean on those who helped shape him into who he is today; his coaches and teammates.
"When I was coming here initially, Clayton [Zelin] dropped everything on his summer break to drive up from Jacksonville, picked me up in Savannah, and drove me and all my stuff here. That guy would drop anything for us, and he is genuinely one of the best people I've ever met. And then Lee [Squires] just knows everything, or he WANTED to know everything about me. He wanted to know about my fashion, about how it's going and what I'm interested in. Obviously, he knew what I could do on the pitch but he just cares about everyone the same way. He wants us to be the best people just as much as we can be the best athletes as we can be."
Already in his second season in Statesboro, Holmes has 13 goals in his 24 games. Along with being named a Sun Belt and National Player of the Week in the first weeks of 2024, he was named both the 2024 Sun Belt Newcomer of the Year and Second-Team All Sun Belt. He was also just the second player this century in program history to record a hat trick, when he exploded against North Florida last season. In his first full game back in 2025, he scored twice against Old Dominion and gave the spark his team needed to ride the momentum and upset the no. 4 team in the country in Marshall.
Many times, life is about giving second chances. For Ryan Holmes, his strong bond with his family gave him the courage to spread his wings and eventually fall in love with Southeast Georgia. Because he took another chance on America, Holmes fell back in love with the game that has been a part of nearly his entire life.
