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. Good for a wall or a guidance counsellor.
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What you earn and what it costs to get there.
Typical
$47,320
Part time or seasonal
$28,790
Top tenth
$98,860
The national median is $47,320 a year and the bottom tenth sit near $28,790. Read that median carefully: the survey covers Coaches and Scouts including a great many people who coach one season a year for a stipend, so the low end is short hours rather than low hourly pay.
Often $2,000 to $6,000 a season
Paid on top of a teaching salary, per sport
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.
$98,860
College staff, professional organizations and directors of large private academies
Above that, head coaching salaries at big college programs run into the millions, but those are a few hundred jobs in the whole country. Do not plan a career around them.
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 centre offering a three level coaching credential and more than sixty free courses. 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 $11,000 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.
Nobody licenses coaches. 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 coaches the way it licenses nurses or teachers. What states do require, almost universally, is a background check, concussion recognition training and usually CPR and first aid before you can coach school sport. Many states also require a coaching education course for anyone who is not already a licensed teacher at the school. 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 free courses.
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, close to 20,000 schools and more than 12 million participants. That scale is why coaching jobs exist in every town in the country, even though most of them are part time.
The National Collegiate Athletic Association covers over 1,000 member schools and around half a million student athletes across three divisions. It is big, but it is a fraction of the high school pool, and the number of salaried head coaching jobs inside it is smaller still.
The NFHS (National Federation of State High School Associations) Learning Center runs a three level national coaching credential and more than 60 free courses covering everything from concussion recognition to heat safety. Several states require the first level before you can coach at all.
Every state now has a law on concussions in youth sport. A coach has to pull a player who shows symptoms, and that player cannot come back the same day or without written clearance. Recognizing it is now part of the required training rather than a judgment call on the sideline.
Last checked September 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.