Carolina Velocity Pitching Academy

In the Beginning

It all started with my daughter. From the time she was born (1995), we would sit her up in the bed and put on a Atlanta Braves baseball game on the TV. When it was time to go to bed, we turned the TV off. She started crying! Not putting two and two together, we did this often for her. When we turned the channel away from the game she would cry. Now we put it all together. We knew then that we would have a sports fan from that moment. Signed her up for t-ball at the age of 5. Climbed up through the ranks of the game at an increased pace, always playing ahead of her age. As her Dad, I worked with her at home on hitting and catching and fielding. Throwing pop flys up to her, you know everything a Dad should do. Until rec ball just wasn’t enough for her. During this time at rec ball she got a passion for pitching.

Tournament ball or travel ball or AAU softball however you might call it, was our next step, her next chapter as an athlete. So what does Dad do, we start our own travel team. Made a few posts on websites, looking for girls for our brand new team. Man, what a job this is! After a lot of time and effort, a coach from another team called the Baseburners called me and told me she had a 14u team and was looking to expand her organization. So that’s what we did! At 9 years old, she became the first member of the Carolina Baseburners 10u team.

With her passion for pitching still showing, we decided to explore options of a pitching coach. After a lot of researching options, we finally decided on a pitching coach out of Lexington, S.C. under the business name of Grease Lightning Pitching. For 2 years, every other week, we drove from Maiden, N.C. to Lexington, S.C. During the time that I spent there with my daughter and her pitching coach, I became a sponge. Learning every possible thing that I could learn from them as well. This is where I gained most of my knowledge of the mechanics of the windmill pitch.

Meanwhile, going to pitching lessons, playing tournaments, going to different softball clinics including the University of Tennessee softball camps. Speaking with college coaches, and soaking up knowledge along the way, we learned the in’s and out’s of the game. After working many years on the knowledge of the game and specializing in two certain areas of the game, pitching and hitting, going to many different clinics, achieving AAU Coach of the Year in 2005 and many championships and tournaments won, Carolina Velocity Pitching & Hitting Academy came to be in October of 2010.