How To Become A Lead Coach: What It Is and Career Path

What is a lead coach and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

4 min read

The Lead Coach is in charge of training athletes in the basics of a particular sport. As the lead coach, you will coordinate and manage all the other subordinate coaches. The responsibility of a lead coach includes developing a schedule or roster for training. He/She also develops gameplay strategies and game plans.

The lead coach is also in charge of conducting tryouts and oversees the entire process of recruiting new players into the team. You will also decide on who makes the team or not. Lead coaches are also in charge of handling team logistics such as training equipment, transportation to games, uniforms, and so on. However, you may need to perform administrative duties like record keeping and managing team budgets.

Lead coaches must have strong communication skills. You should also be great at motivating and organizing the team. Lead coaches need to be able to forge a good relationship with the assistant coaches to achieve team goals and objectives. A minimum of a bachelor's degree is a common academic requirement. However, you can choose to go for a specialized coaching course. The average annual salary of a lead coach is $44,907.

ScoreLead CoachUS Average

Salary

4.2

Avg. Salary $53,811

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

8.0

Growth rate 20%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

3.8

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.23%

Asian 5.38%

Black or African American 8.67%

Hispanic or Latino 12.94%

Unknown 6.25%

White 66.53%

Gender

female 56.78%

male 43.22%

Age - 34

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 34

Stress level

8.0

Stress level is high

7.1 - high

Complexity level

8.4

Complexity level is challenging

7 - challenging

Work life balance

7.3

Work life balance is good

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a lead coach

Explore lead coach education requirements

Most common lead coach degrees

Bachelor's

60.7 %

Master's

14.0 %

Associate

12.4 %

Start to develop specific lead coach skills

Skills	Percentages
Phone Calls	30.05%
Professional Development	28.73%
Direct Reports	14.25%
Customer Issues	3.68%
Leadership	3.58%

Complete relevant lead coach training and internships

Accountants spend an average of Less than 1 month on post-employment, on-the-job training. New lead coaches learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as a lead coach based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real lead coach resumes.

Research lead coach duties and responsibilities

Perform additional responsibilities as deemed appropriate by school and district supervisors such as organizing and managing elementary school mathematics information nights.
Administer payroll functions and leaves of absence.
Correspond to SITEL and operations deliverables in a timely manner.
Offer expansion ideas on future warehouse layouts, and conveyor systems.

Get lead coach experience

Generally, it takes 4-6 years to become a lead coach. The most common roles before becoming a lead coach include coach, internship team lead and cashier.

Prepare your lead coach resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your lead coach resume.

You can use Zippia's AI resume builder to make the resume writing process easier while also making sure that you include key information that hiring managers expect to see on a lead coach resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

Choose from 10+ customizable lead coach resume templates

Build a professional lead coach resume in minutes. Browse through our resume examples to identify the best way to word your resume. Then choose from 10+ resume templates to create your lead coach resume.