By Bob Sutton
Special to The Alamance News
Marisa Camuto is joining the coaching ranks as the new coach for the Eastern Alamance girls’ soccer team.
She’s a former four-year player for the Eagles.
“I’ve never coached before, so this is definitely going to be a learning curve,” Camuto said. “The good thing is I’m not coming into a team that doesn’t know what they’re doing.”
Eastern won a state championship in 2023. That was the final season for coach Bob Webber before Shawn Gibbs coached the Eagles the past two seasons. Both those men had daughters on the team.
Camuto, a 2017 Eastern graduate, was a goalkeeper for the Eagles. She played a season of college soccer for Greensboro College.
She said she’s counting on her array of soccer-playing experiences, which included time with a Kernersville-based travel team, will aid her as a coach.
“With all the years of experience and all the coaches I’ve been trained by, I’ll pull things from those that I’ve liked,” she said.
The new coach’s brother, AJ Camuto, is an assistant football coach at Eastern and he’ll help with the soccer team’s conditioning program.
Marisa Camuto’s uncle is John Kirby, a longtime football coach and former athletics director at the school.
It was at an Eastern football game this fall when Camuto came across principal Suzanne Simpson, who broached the coaching idea and a couple of months later she was hired for that role.
Camuto said she was encouraged by a team meeting last month.
Camuto works full-time as an intensive care unit nurse at UNC Hospitals. Those include 12-hour shifts Friday through Sundays, so the soccer duties will fit in.
“It’s going to be tough, but I think it’s going to be rewarding,” she said.
