How do you become a professional runner?

To become a professional runner, you need to develop your running skills and abilities, compete in races to gain recognition, and seek out sponsorship deals. Here are some details on these three steps that you can take to become a professional runner:

How To Become An Athlete: What It Is and Career Path

What is an athlete and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

3 min read

An athlete competes in various sporting competitions. Athletes tend to work with teammates, trainers, coaches, managers, nutritionists, physiologists, and psychologists among others. As an athlete, you can build your career around football, tennis, rugby, golf, motor racing, boxing, athletics, ice hockey, baseball, snooker, and basketball. You may be required to travel for sporting events. After your career, you can decide to become a trainer, coach, manager, sports developer, or pundit.

All that is required of an athlete is a natural talent, determination, strength, fitness, technique, and self-discipline. Although there are no academic requirements for this job, a high school diploma would suffice. Most athletes practice one sport and train virtually every day. Athletes make an average salary of $51,929 per year, equivalent to $24.97 an hour. They earn as high as $96,000 and a low of $19,000.

ScoreAthleteUS Average

Salary

4.0

Avg. Salary $51,729

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability Level

7.1

Growth Rate 36%

Growth Rate 0.3%

Diversity

2.3

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.23%

Asian 3.75%

Black or African American 8.90%

Hispanic or Latino 7.49%

Unknown 6.79%

White 72.83%

Gender

female 38.43%

male 61.57%

Age - 33

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 33

Stress Level

7.1

Stress level is high

7.1 - high

Complexity Level

5.3

Complexity Level is intermediate

7 - challenging

Work Life Balance

0.9

Work Life balance is very poor

6.4 - fair

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Key steps to become an athlete

Explore athlete education requirements

Most common athlete degrees

Bachelor's

72.6 %

High School Diploma

11.0 %

Associate

9.7 %

Start to develop specific athlete skills

Skills	Percentages
Team-Oriented Environment	28.65%
Math	24.51%
Apparel	19.77%
Visual Displays	8.71%
Customer Service	3.69%

Research athlete duties and responsibilities

Apply time management, goal setting, leadership and teamwork to achieve academic success while fulfilling training and competition requirements.
Manage supervision of elite and NCAA pipeline development.
Certify to represent athletes in the NBA, NFL, NHL, MLB and WTA.
Participate in soccer and volleyball athletics

Prepare your athlete resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your athlete resume.

You can use Zippia's AI resume builder to make the resume writing process easier while also making sure that you include key information that hiring managers expect to see on an athlete resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

Choose From 10+ Customizable Athlete Resume templates

Build a professional Athlete resume in minutes. Browse through our resume examples to identify the best way to word your resume. Then choose from 10+ resume templates to create your Athlete resume.