Want to coach baseball but I don't know what major to go into

  Hello, I am currently a Junior in High School and a Freshman in college. I'm in a program at my school that puts me into college early so I don't really have as much time to decide on a career as other people in my grade or age. However, I know one thing, I want to coach baseball or be a scout. I know I am not good enough to go pro and probably not even D-1 baseball. I have looked into a sports management degree because it can get me into the business side of sports and I could potentially intern for a college team and maybe be able to land an assistant coaching job or something close to it. However, I am also looking into a more realistic and secure job as a High School coach. I know coaches don't get paid enough to make it on their own and most schools hire their own teachers or staff to fill the coaching positions. I my favorite subject is Social Studies and I would love to teach it but I know getting a job as a Social Studies can be very hard. I honestly don't know what to do. I want to be in the sports industry either way but my dream is to coach, even if it's at the High School level. Physical Education is another way I could go but the job market for P.E teachers are just as bad if not worse compared to SS teachers. I have heard of people coaching High School sports with a sports management degree but I am not sure how that would work.

Any suggestions on what to do? Majors?

On looking at a few jobs being advertised for baseball coaches, I find that a major - or even whether the candidate has any college - is not mentioned, so I’m inclined to think that the particular major doesn’t matter for getting access to coaching work. What matters is that you have played the game and thoroughly know it. For a baseball coaching career the most important things you can do in college is play baseball and, should the opportunity arise there, to coach it.

By the way, I find coaching jobs at schools that do not entail having a teaching credential (for example, https://reynolds.tedk12.com/hire/viewjob.aspx?jobid=2248).

I imagine a school coach would be a part time gig - a few hours a week. Is there a full time job you would have to go along with it?

It definitely depends on what will satisfy that coaching itch for you and whether you need to do it full-time.

If coaching baseball part time or as part of another job is okay with you, it kind of doesn’t matter what you major in - although majoring in something that you can teach at the K-12 level (particularly secondary school) is a good move. Schools do love to hire teachers who can also coach sports, especially private and independent schools. The football coach at my high school, for example, was an English teacher by trade.

Getting a job as a teacher depends on where you live. In some areas it’s more difficult than others. I’d investigate the job market in your area a bit and ask some teachers what that’s like. (You’d also have the additional requirement of finding a school that needed a baseball coach.)

If you want to coach at the college level, I don’t think your major matters there either. You just need to have experience playing baseball, and later coaching it to advance. Check out, for example, the job listings on the American Baseball Coaches Association website or by searching for “baseball coach” on HigherEdJobs. Generally you start as an assistant coach; none of the job ads I’ve browsed have stated any kind of major - they just want you to have a bachelor’s degree and experience playing collegiate baseball. They would probably prefer D1 experience, but probably not require it, especially at non-D1 schools. (Also of note is that many of the assistant coach jobs are part-time.)

Now a related career is athletic training; a lot of institutions - specifically D1 schools - have trainers/strength and conditioning coordinators on their athletics staff. There is an athletics training major at a lot of universities that would seem to be good preparation for that. Other majors for that career are exercise science, exercise physiology, physical education, or maybe kinesiology. And those jobs do seem to specify those kinds of majors are necessary for the work.

Whether you’ll be able to coach beyond HS or become a scout more or less depends on your playing level. Can you play D2 or on a top D3 team? Lower D1? How good are you? There are tons of guys that know a lot about baseball, and absolutely love the sport, that can’t get anywhere with coaching/scouting because they lack the connections/reputation among college/semi-pro/pro coaches and managers. If you can’t play at a high enough level in college, you probably won’t be coaching beyond HS, in which case you might as well concentrate fully on becoming a HS teacher in whatever subject interests you. If you’re a good enough player for a top D3 team or a respectable D2 team, you could end up as a college coach at a level where you could possibly progress beyond college, pending your coaching talent and connections.

So your optimal college path would depend on your playing ability, plus your grades/academic ability. What level can you play in college? What academic selectivity are you aiming for in college? In your case, with your interests, choosing the college and college baseball program is paramount. The major is secondary. I doubt you will be able to finagle your way onto a college coaching roster (for a decent living) or become a paid scout by loving ball and having the “right” major. Look at it this way: the right major for becoming a baseball coach or scout at a level/income that would trump the stability/income of being a HS teacher is… baseball.