I'm a college senior interested in pursuing a career in coaching, where do I start?

The shorter route would to start on as a grad assistant. If you go on into a high school you could be there for a long time. Which means you will get paid more teaching at a High School and getting more for each sport you coach.

Find a college coach and find a school with a graduate education program and volunteer to be a grad assistant. Education programs are plentiful and there is a good chance that a program that needs your help will have one. If you don't catch on with a college job after this experience, school districts like to hire teachers that can coach. I have a friend that went to a modest graduate school and got on immediately as a history teacher in a Fairfax, VA high school, a good job.

Not a coach, but my initial thoughts:

1) Talk to other coaches and develop contacts. Learn where positions are posted.

2) You will likely need to start as a graduate assistant.

3) Learn about "coaching" and just how to write a training plan. If your college has a coaching academic program, take some classes there especially in more the relationship side of it.

4) As a college coach there is a lot more to it than just writing training plans. Recruiting is going to be a major thing. Doing admin stuff like tracking athletes attending classes and booking travel and meets or at least know how that works.

5) Consider a non-coaching job attached to a program. This happens in football a good deal now where someone starts out as a "quality control" staffer and then moves into on field coaching. There might be administrative jobs that get your foot in the door. You can learn from the coach.

A couple people have mentioned it the grad assistant route is a good one. You should be able to ask your current coach. If they need a volunteer assistant, or a grad assistant, or if any of their buddies, need a great assistant or volunteer there may be some changes with volunteer position, regardless what they call it talk to your coach and have them talk to their buddies. Most coaches can find a place for an athlete that They like to at least get their foot in the door someplace and work their way up from there.

You probably don’t want to start at the high school level. It will be harder to get back into the college ranks , ideally if you want to be a D1 coach, you will start out volunteering or assisting as a student or whatever at another D1 school because it can also be hard to move around within divisions just because the networking isn’t quite there . if you meet D1 coaches, it’s easier to find D1 jobs later.

I would agree don’t start at the high school level. There are a ton of good high school coach that never get a chance to move up. Try and get into DI as quickly as possible.

A few others things:

1. Prepare to be broke, even DI head XC coaches make very little at the mid major level (less than 40k).

2. Become a compliance and financial wizard. I have seen people get to the top quickly by know financial aid better that the university they are at.

3. network as much as possible. Volunteer to manage the home meets, easiest way to meet the rest of the coaches in your area

Start with a mental health exam. Anybody that wants a career that depends on snot nose kids and young adults is probably bent.

Consider this, it's a big world full of opportunities and you spend so much time around running that you might not see that you'd be happier on a different career path.

Not to say that coaching isn't for you, but it isn't for most people so make sure you consider whether you're really the type to be happy there before you're too far down that road.

Like others have said, do not coach in high school if you want to be a college coach. Ideally, don't go to another NCAA division either. If you want to be a D1 coach the easiesg path is to stay involved in D1.

Go to a new school (not where you competed) and see if you can work on a grad degree while helping out. Move around every couple of years and get to know as many people as you can (really get to know them, not just meeting at a convention but working together). You're going to get hired/promoted because of your references.

Learn all of the behind scenes stuff.

You're likely going to have to put in your time at the high school, CC, or private school levels for years.

Go to every conference, every elbow rubber. Stay late at every meet and get into contact with everyone you can.

Keep your roots shallow; you will more than likely have to move from job to job, often without much warning. Pay will be garbage, especially if you never break into the DI level (which, is likely).

But, money is not everything. You want to coach I'm assuming because you've had great experiences- follow that and whatever money you make will just be a bonus. The sport needs passionate folks to be stewards for the next generations. Regardless of what level you coach at, you will have an impact if you coach with fidelity.

Best of luck

We need more hard scientists coaching T&F and less bro scientists. Go work on a m.s. in biology or chemistry or bio-chemistry. If you are willing to volunteer, you will land a spot but for the good of the sport, get a hard science master degree.

False, don’t get a hard science degree. As a former stopwatch holder your degrees mean nothing. The way to win at the DI level is recruiting, compliance, and contacts. Anyone can learn the training.

Hard science is great to understand but the NCAA is a game. The rules are more important. Learn the rule book, what is in it and what isn’t in it yet.

If you go the GA route get the degree that will help you out the most on the other side of coaching when you run out of money (or want to stay married).

Teaching, MBA, etc.

Learn as many different events as possible. Be a track coach, not a distance coach. Being able to fill the needs of a program is important. Most college runners think they can coach distance, learn to be flexible.