You run practices, pick the lineup and teach the fundamentals. Most coaching jobs are part time and most coaches have another job.
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Pay, the path, pros and cons and the facts on one printable page. Counsellors: send it to a student from your own email in one click.
The median pay is about $47,320 a year. Across everyone in the job it runs from about $28,790 at the lower end to about $98,860 at the upper end. The source is listed under Sources at the end of this page.
1 to 4 years after high school, on the usual route.
$150 to $48,500 all in for tuition, fees, exams and kit. Living costs are not counted.
No. There is no license to hold, though many employers still ask for training or a certificate.
Good demand nationally, from government outlook data. Demand varies by region, so check your area.
Or read the whole thing here
What you earn and what it costs to get there.
Median
$47,320
Bottom tenth
$28,790
Top tenth
$98,860
The national median is $47,320 a year. The bottom tenth earn $28,790 or less and the top tenth $98,860 or more (2025 federal wage survey). Read that median carefully: the survey covers Coaches and Scouts together and publishes only yearly pay for them, not an hourly rate, and many coaching jobs are seasonal.
A fixed amount each season
Paid on top of a teaching salary, per sport, set by the district
This is how most American high school coaching actually works. The head coach is usually a teacher at the school who takes a seasonal supplement, not someone employed to coach full time.
$76,700 a year
The median in New Jersey, the highest of any state
The District of Columbia is next at $65,360 and Louisiana at $60,960. The lowest is Kentucky, at $35,570. State medians for coaches and scouts, 2025 federal wage survey.
Roughly, all in
$150 to $48,500
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
This is one of the cheapest careers on the site to enter. The low end is CPR, first aid and concussion training, usually under $100, plus a background check at $25 to $75, with the national high school federation's Learning Center offering a three level coaching credential and more than sixty courses at no cost. The catch is that the unpaid and low paid years at club level are how most people actually build a record. The high end is a four year degree in education, kinesiology or sport management at an in-state public university, roughly $12,000 a year, which you only strictly need to coach at a school or college.
This is one of the cheapest careers to enter on this site. The expensive part is the degree, and you only strictly need one if you want to coach at a school or a college.
Stipend
A fixed seasonal supplement for a school team, on top of whatever else you do.
Hourly or per session
Club teams, camps and private academies. Skills coaches often charge per hour for private sessions.
Salary
College assistants, athletic directors and full time club directors. These are the jobs worth aiming at.
Nothing
Plenty of youth coaching is volunteer. Be honest with yourself about which roles pay and which do not.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
Club and community coaching needs no state license. You get hired on results, references and being trusted with other people's children.
Play and then help
Grades 9 to 12
Assist with a youth team while you are still in high school. Referee, run a camp, keep a scorebook. Every coach starts unpaid.
High school diploma
Grade 12
The minimum for almost any paid coaching role, along with being over 18 and passing a background check.
Bachelor's degree, if you want a school or college job
4 years
Education, kinesiology, exercise science or sport management. For high school work, a teaching license is the realistic route in, because the coaching stipend is attached to a teaching post.
Coach certification and safety training
Weeks
A coaching credential through the NFHS (National Federation of State High School Associations) Learning Center or your sport's national governing body, plus CPR, first aid and concussion courses.
Assist, then run your own program
2 to 5 years
Two or three seasons as an assistant is normal before anyone hands you a head coaching job.
Biology and anatomy
You are dealing with growing bodies, injuries and recovery every day.
Physical education
Obvious, but also the subject most high school coaches end up teaching.
Math and statistics
Modern coaching at every level runs on tracked data, not gut feel.
Public speaking
Half the job is explaining something clearly to a tired 15 year old who does not want to hear it.
No state licenses club or community coaches. Some states do require a state permit to coach school sport, including Ohio (a Pupil Activity Permit, for paid and volunteer coaches), New York (a coaching license for coaches who are not certified teachers) and Iowa (a coaching authorization). Almost every state requires a background check and concussion training for school coaches, and usually CPR and first aid. Governing bodies for each sport add their own certification levels, and club and travel teams generally follow them. Rules differ by state and by sport, so check your own state association's site before you apply.
NFHS (National Federation of State High School Associations) Learning Center
The national standard for high school coaching, with a three level coaching credential and over 60 courses at no cost.
Your sport's national governing body
Soccer, basketball, swimming, track and the rest each run their own coaching licenses and clinics.
University degree programs
Kinesiology, exercise science and sport management, often combined with a teaching license.
Other coaches
The unglamorous truth: most coaching is learned by assisting someone good and stealing their practice plans.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Strength and conditioning certification
The clearest route to a salaried college or professional job, and it needs a degree behind it.
A teaching license
For high school work this is the single most useful qualification, because it turns a stipend into a full time income.
Higher coaching licenses in your sport
The top levels in soccer, swimming and track take years and open club and college doors.
Athletic administration
Athletic director roles are salaried, year round, and the usual next step out of coaching.
Referee or officiate
Paid, teaches you the rulebook properly, and it is where a lot of coaches start earning.
Summer camp work
Full days with large groups of children. The fastest way to find out if you can manage a room.
Video and data tools
Being the person who can cut film and track numbers makes you useful to a head coach immediately.
A driver's license
Teams travel. Many programs want coaches who can drive a van.
Very few people are paid to coach and do nothing else. The common shapes are: a teacher who coaches two sports for a stipend, a club coach who strings together sessions and camps across the week, or someone with a full time job outside sport who coaches evenings. Full time salaried coaching mostly exists at colleges, in large private academies and in professional organizations, and those jobs involve moving cities when you change teams.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
You teach or work your regular job until mid afternoon. Then you set up, check who is injured, and run a two hour practice with a plan you wrote the night before. After practice there are parents wanting to talk about playing time, a form to file, and a message from an athletic director about the bus for Saturday. Game days are five or six hours. Out of season you run conditioning, plan the schedule, fundraise, and watch film. Add up the hours and the stipend is not a lot per hour.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
The National Federation of State High School Associations represents 51 state associations, 19,952 high schools and about 12.4 million participants, including an estimated 4 million in performing arts. That scale is why coaching jobs exist in every town, even though most are part time.
The National Collegiate Athletic Association serves more than 500,000 student athletes at over 1,000 colleges in three divisions. It is big, but it is a fraction of the high school pool, and salaried head coaching jobs inside it are fewer still.
About 298,800 people work as coaches and scouts (2025). The federal projection has the job growing 5% to 6% to 2035, with about 36,400 openings a year, many of them part time or seasonal.
Every list is built from the same numbers shown above, so you can see where this career sits next to the others.
Sport and fitness first, then the rest of the field. See every career in health.
Last checked October 2026. Pay figures are typical full-time annual amounts in United States dollars, based on Bureau of Labor Statistics wage data and published pay scales. They vary by state, employer and experience. Tuition is for in-state students at public schools unless the card says otherwise. How every figure on this site is sourced and checked.
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