EP Wealth Vice President, Advisor, Zach Pidgeon, CFP®, EA, draws on his background in college athletics to walk through key considerations for coaches planning the transition to retirement, including when to start and common mistakes to avoid.
The goal of retirement planning for college and pro coaches is to put you and your family in a position of control. Coaching can be an unpredictable profession, and financial planning for the transition to retirement is about reaching a place where job changes and career uncertainty don't force your hand. By planning early and often with the help of a professional advisor, the goal is to get to a point where you're able to choose your next chapter rather than being pushed into a decision out of financial necessity.
Working with coaches as a financial advisor is something I come to with firsthand experience. I spent six years at Duke University, with my last role as Director of Football Operations. I was on the coaching staff, supporting coaches with management, logistics, and behind-the-scenes operations. I know how the coaching lifestyle works, and what the trajectory of a career in this profession looks like. That familiarity helps me spot the financial considerations that are unique for coaches and to better guide my clients toward the retirement we've been building toward together.
Over the years, I've seen a few of the same planning gaps show up among coaches who are getting closer to retirement.
The coaching lifestyle has a rhythm that's distinct from most professions—frequent relocations, changing benefits packages, unpredictable career timelines. An advisory team that isn't familiar with the ins and outs of coaching may miss important nuances when helping a coach plan for retirement. For example, a coach who has moved between several universities over the course of a career may have retirement accounts scattered across multiple former employers. An advisor who understands the profession will know to look for those and evaluate whether rolling them into your current employee plan is the best strategy.
Sometimes, people don't spend a lot of time thinking about tax planning, and I understand that. But it becomes a central factor as coaches approach retirement, especially during the later years of a career when earnings are at their highest. If you're not paying attention to the tax side, you could end up overpaying on taxes or underpaying and incurring penalties you didn't even know were a possibility. And once those penalties hit, there's not a lot you can do about it after the fact.
This one comes up often. When coaches arrive at a new school, they have a lot going on—retirement plan options may not be top of mind. But there may be account options available to them that they don't know about or don't get around to enrolling in. The 457 plan is a good example. It's available at the university level and provides an additional way to put money toward retirement savings beyond a 403(b). Not knowing it's there, or not enrolling because the timing was hectic, means potentially leaving a significant opportunity behind.
The consequences of these oversights tend to compound: lower retirement savings, fewer resources in retirement, and a reduced lifestyle.
Here are some of the planning considerations I commonly talk through with coaches and their families as they start planning for the transition to retirement.
Ideally, coaches will start planning for retirement 10 to 15 years before they intend to retire. That's far enough out that there's still time to make adjustments if needed, but close enough that you likely have some retirement savings built up and a detailed review actually provides a useful picture of where you stand.
For coaches, this window often coincides with peak earning years. The last 10 to 15 years of a coaching career tend to be when income is at its highest, which makes this the period where planning decisions can carry the most weight. It's also when it becomes important to evaluate your income, assets, debts, and spending habits to get a clear picture of whether you're on track for the retirement you have in mind.
Starting early serves another purpose specific to coaching: building a financial position that can absorb the profession's unpredictability. Firings, staff changes, and program shifts can happen at any stage. If a coach has been planning consistently for years, a sudden job change late in their career doesn't have to shake the retirement timeline. I strive to get all of the coaching families that we work with to a point where they can choose the next job—they don't have to take the next job. In a profession with enough built-in stressors, taking some of the financial pressure out of the equation goes a long way.
In my experience, a hard stop—going from full-time coaching to full retirement overnight—is actually uncommon among the coaches I work with. A lot of coaches don't want to go from "this is all I've ever known for 40 years" to sitting at home with nothing to do. Thankfully, in the coaching profession, there are often roles that allow for a gradual step-down into retirement. Analyst and support staff roles let a coach step back from the full demands of the position—less recruiting, less travel—while staying connected to the team and the game.
A gradual retirement can potentially offer several advantages:
The planning should give coaches the flexibility to choose the approach that fits their life. Whether that's a gradual step-down over several years or a clean break, the key is that the decision is theirs to make.
One thing to keep in mind during this period: for coaches who are above 63 and still earning income, it's important to work with your planning team to manage income levels with an eye toward Medicare's Income-Related Monthly Adjustment Amount (IRMAA) thresholds.
Tax planning can be crucial throughout a coaching career, but its role shifts as retirement gets closer. During peak earning years, the focus is often on reducing taxable income through contributions to retirement accounts. As a coach moves into retirement or steps down into a lower-earning role, new opportunities can open up. A lower income may create a window for strategies like Roth conversions. And for coaches in the years leading up to Medicare eligibility, it's important to work with a planning team to keep IRMAA thresholds in mind.
These decisions depend on account balances, account types, tax brackets, and spending goals. Each situation is different, which is why working with a team that integrates tax planning with financial planning is important during this phase.
For many coaches, their professional identity and their personal identity are deeply intertwined. Coaching isn't a job they clock into—it's who they are. I hear it frequently from mid-career coaches: "I'm never going to retire. I'm going to die out on the football field." Their significant other often does not want to hear that!
That kind of attachment to the role can make it hard to seriously consider stepping away. That’s why I emphasize to my coaching clients that planning for retirement does not require them to pick a hard stop date in advance and commit to it. Instead, the point is to put the financial pieces in place so that when the time does feel right, you and your family have the flexibility to step away on your terms.
The plan can adapt and adjust as your circumstances change, along with your feelings about when the right time might be. And for coaches who want to stay involved, the plan can show them that a part-time role is something they're doing because they enjoy it, not because they need the income.
When these decisions have been thought through and planned over a period of years, the anxiety around the transition to retirement tends to give way to a sense of readiness: "Okay, I can do this whenever the time truly feels right."
For mid-career coaches, one piece of advice I come back to often: start giving thought to what "enough" looks like. That doesn't mean you have to stop working when you reach that number. But it may give you and your family the ability to make decisions from a position of strength and choose your next chapter on your own terms.
Working with an advisory team that understands the coaching profession can make a real difference in how smoothly the transition to retirement goes. The right team can help you plan around the unique aspects of a coaching career, coordinate with a CPA and estate attorney when needed, and keep you accountable to the plan over the years so that when retirement arrives, you're ready for it.
Coaches who want to start planning for retirement can reach out to EP Wealth’s wealth management team for athletes and coaches. We work with coaches at every stage of their careers to help them approach the transition with clarity and confidence.
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