Football Coach Resume: Examples and Tips

Football coaches are responsible for setting the tone of a football team — everything from organizing players and practices, teaching fundamentals and strategies, and supplying leadership and motivation. To excel at this job, you should have in-depth knowledge of the game along with strong management and interpersonal skills. This position usually requires at least a few years of coaching experience, and experience playing the game is also a plus.

Put your best foot forward with a resume worthy of the gridiron, using our professional resume examples and tips.

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Football Coach

Top 4 Characteristics of a Best-in-Class Football Coach Resume

  1. Summary  Feature your best traits in a few sentences, focusing on your top accomplishments and skills. Lead off with a relevant personality trait, such as energy or professionalism. For example: “Energetic football coach with professional approach to developing players and teams.” Then add an accomplishment or two that shows off your effectiveness (e.g., “5+ years’ experience coaching high-school football teams to winning records”).
  2. Skills Scan the job description for the football coach position and pick out keywords that match with your strengths and abilities, such as leadership abilities, or “coaching fundamental skills and techniques.” Add those skills here, along with important intangible skills such as problem-solving abilities, an energetic approach or motivational skills.
  3. Work History Emphasize achievements and milestones rather than day-to-day tasks, including details and numbers to give your accomplishments more weight. For example: “Coached high school team to 2 city championships” gives employers more information than “coached high school team to championships.”
  4. Education In addition to your highest educational credential (e.g., high school diploma or college degree), include any recognized coaching qualifications, such as USA Football certification, and any additional training or courses you’ve taken in related areas, such as Sports Science.

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Find the Right Template for your Resume

Don’t spend your time searching high and low for a presentable resume. Here are three professionally-crafted templates you can customize in minutes using our resume builder.

Whitespace

This clean design makes subtle use of color and varied resume fonts to improve readability and highlight your qualifications.

Blueprint

This eye-catching layout features strong fonts and color highlights for a unique look. The summary section is highlighted to grab the reader’s attention.

Centered

The simple, classy design uses indents and bold headings for a clear presentation. The extra pinch of color injects some creativity to your resume’s look.

For even more free designs you can use for your resume, visit our resume templates page.

Do’s and Don’ts for Your Resume

  • DO highlight your soft skills Soft skills are just as pivotal to a coaching position as your actual knowledge of strategy, training and play calling. As a coach, you should know how to coordinate efforts, work well with others, encourage players, and build team spirit. Feature skills in your resume that address these areas, and note them in your summary and work experience section. 
  • DO avoid typos and grammatical slips Always use your spelling and grammar checkers, and review your resume before sending it in. Employers list simple spelling or typing errors as one of their top pet peeves with resumes, so make sure yours up to snuff.
  • DO be specific rather than general Every applicant has different personalities, experience and skills, yet they all end up sounding very similar to each other. To stand out from the crowd, use specific details when describing your skills and accomplishments. For example: Stating “Proficient with spread offenses” is better than “proficient at coaching offense,” and “Coached semi-pro football team to four division championships over five-year span” is better than “coached football team to division championships.”
  • DON’T include non-professional information While it’s critical for the hiring manager to get a clear picture of you as a candidate, stick to the professional details of your career. While you might be an ace barbecue cook, or have a talent for playing guitar, limit your skills and training to areas that directly impact football. Including a link to your online networking profile, which might include more details and color on your other interests, is a better option.
  • DON’T make your resume too long Recruiters take only a few seconds on average to read through a resume. The longer a resume is, the greater the chance that crucial information is overlooked by a recruiter. Shoot for a resume length of two pages at most, use punchy bullet points and phrases to describe your qualifications, and highlight only your most relevant training, work experience and abilities.
  • DON’T hide any gaps in your career There may be times where you’ve been unemployed or taking time off work for additional training. Be honest in presenting your work history, and detail any activities or education you’ve taken on during times off from work.