Pulling Back the Curtain

Episode 83: Greg Visinho (Former Division III Women's Soccer Coach/Current club coach)

🎙 This week on the Youth $ports Podcast: I sit down with Greg Visinho, a former Division III women’s soccer coach and current club coach, to pull back the curtain on the realities of Division III athletics and the pressure-filled recruiting culture surrounding youth soccer.

🔹 What the Division III experience actually looks like when there are no athletic scholarships and why “student-athlete” is truly in the right order.

🔹 Dismantling the “D1 or bust” mentality and how this narrative often starts at the club level, not with college coaches.

🔹 Why so many athletes grow up with an inflated view of their ability, and how that disconnect can lead to disappointment, anxiety, and burnout.

🔹 The uncomfortable truth about club soccer as a business...commitment posts, acronyms, branding, and selling the dream.

🔹 Why Division III provides a well-rounded, rigorous, and meaningful college experience, even without the national spotlight.

🔹 The stigma attached to non–Division I athletics—and why it couldn’t be further from reality.

🔹 The role academics play at the D3 level, including majors that are often off-limits at some Division I programs.

🔹 A real conversation about massive Division III rosters and JV teams: developmental opportunity or enrollment strategy?

🔹 Greg explains the administrative pressure to carry large rosters and why “healthy and vibrant” can mean very different things to coaches vs. college administrators.

🔹 Recruiting patience at the D3 level: why many kids aim higher than is realistic, and how reality eventually sets in.

🔹 Why promises of playing time can be fool’s gold, and how misleading expectations often start long before the college level.

🔹 The big message for families: most kids can play college soccer somewhere—but we need to take the pressure off and redefine what success actually looks like.