About the executives who coach, the time it takes, and what parents and programs should expect.
The reasons we hear most often across the coaches we profile: their own kids play and they wanted more than a spectator’s seat; a coach shaped their life once and they are repaying it; and the work itself is restorative in a way board meetings are not. Coaching offers immediate feedback, visible growth, and a community role that has nothing to do with a title.
Most say the same thing after a season or two: they get back more than they give. The Stories section collects their accounts firsthand.
The executives we profile consistently say yes, and the mechanism is practice, not metaphor. Coaching forces weekly repetitions of the hardest leadership skills: communicating one idea to twelve different learning styles, giving honest feedback a person can act on, managing effort through a losing streak, and putting the group’s development above your own scoreboard.
A leader who can hold the attention of a 10U team at 7 AM has practiced something directly transferable to any Monday meeting.
The honest answer from our profiles: they schedule it like a board commitment, not a hobby. Practices go on the calendar first and work is arranged around them. Early-morning ice times and evening practices actually help, because they rarely collide with business hours.
Most coaches we feature also share duties with assistant coaches so no single season depends on one person’s travel schedule. The common thread is treating the commitment as non-negotiable rather than fitting it in when convenient. Among our profiled coaches, Cordis Group founder Ron Smith has coached 14U hockey in Westchester County for three seasons alongside running an M&A advisory practice.
Requirements vary by sport and league, but most organized youth programs in the United States require a background check, SafeSport abuse-prevention training, and concussion-protocol training. Sport governing bodies add their own coaching-education levels, such as USA Hockey’s coaching certification modules and age-specific training requirements.
Expect a modest annual investment of time and fees. Leagues publish their requirements, and a program that does not screen its volunteer coaches is worth asking hard questions about.
Five things, in rough order: safety compliance (background check, SafeSport, concussion training); development focus, meaning every kid improves and plays, not just the strongest; communication habits, with clear expectations to players and parents before the season starts; emotional control on the bench, because kids copy what they see; and reliability.
Notice that win-loss record is not on the list. For most age groups the right question is whether kids come back next season wanting to play again.
Start where the need is constant: local recreation leagues and town programs are chronically short of coaches. Volunteer as an assistant for one season to learn the rhythm before taking a head role. Complete the league’s required training, then ask the program director what age group needs help rather than requesting your own child’s team by default.
Most of the executives we profile started exactly this way, as the parent who agreed to help and stayed a decade.
Repeatedly, according to the leaders we profile. The bench is a live laboratory for composure: reading a room mid-adversity, resetting a group after a mistake, and keeping standards steady when emotions are not. Executives who coach describe drawing on those repetitions in negotiations, layoffs, and company sales, the moments when people watch the leader’s face before they hear the words.
Several of our Insights essays trace exactly this connection between the rink or field and the deal table.
Kids give you no positional authority. Nobody on a 12U team cares about your title, so everything runs on earned trust, clarity, and consistency, which is leadership with the shortcuts removed. The other difference is time horizon: a coach optimizes for who the player becomes in five years, not this quarter.
Many executives tell us that carrying that longer horizon back into the office, developing people rather than extracting output, is the single biggest change coaching made in how they manage.
Often, and usually at transition points: stepping into a bigger role, leading through rapid growth, or selling the company they built. The same leaders who volunteer on a sideline tend to be the ones who understand that performance improves with outside eyes on it.
Founder transitions in particular, where identity and net worth change in the same season, are where executive coaching earns its keep. See what executive coaches owe founders pre-transaction and why founders need a coach more in year one than year ten.
Use the Nominate a Coach page and tell us three things: what the person does professionally, what and where they coach, and one story that shows why their kids or their community would miss them if they stopped.
We profile coaches from every sport and every level, from tee ball to travel hockey. There is no fee, no sponsorship, and no way to purchase a profile; selections are editorial.