Gene Visscher was one of those rare athletes who made as big an impact on the sidelines as he did on the hardcourt.  That’s because Visscher returned to the two colleges where he played basketball to take up the coaching reins.

Visscher, a Muskegon High School prep star, was a standout basketball player at Muskegon Community College where he averaged 20 points per game.  He transferred to Weber State College in Utah in 1964 and made an immediate impact.  During his junior year, he averaged 18.4 points and 11.3 rebounds while setting school records in almost every statistical category, including field goal percentage for a season at 54 percent.  Visscher led the Wildcats to the conference championship the following year with a 20-5 overall mark.  He averaged 21 points per game and 14.3 rebounds en route to District 7 All-America honors.

Visscher was selected in the 19th round of the 1966 NBA Draft by the Baltimore Bullets, but decided to embark on a coaching career.  In 1966, he accepted the head basketball position at Muskegon Community College, then returned to Weber State as freshman coach the following year.  In 1968, he was added to the varsity staff. He was named head coach of the Wildcats at the beginning of the 1971-72 season.

In his first season at the helm, Visscher guided the team to the Big Sky Conference Championship and a berth in the NCAA tournament.  Weber State downed Hawaii in the opening round contest, then fell to eventual champion UCLA in the Western Regionals.  Gene was rewarded with the Big Sky’s Coach of the Year honor.  The Wildcats repeated as conference champs in 1972-73, and were ranked as high as No. 18 in the nation by United Press International.   The team was again selected to play in the NCAA tournament, losing to Jerry Tarkanian’s Long Beach State squad in the first round.  Visscher was recognized a second time by the conference as coach of the year.  The Muskegon native stepped down following the 1974-75 season with a 58-38 mark in four seasons.

Visscher returned to Michigan, coaching varsity basketball at Charlotte High School from the fall of 1975 through the spring of 1978.  In the fall, he returned to the college ranks, working as an assistant at the University of Wyoming.  Visscher closed out his college coaching career as head of the Northern Arizona University varsity program from 1981 through 1983.