Denny Tincher, Abby Tincher Davis, & Angela Tincher O’Brien
When the topic of successful proven elite pitching coaches and programs is discussed, a name that is always mentioned is the Tincher family. Denny Tincher is the creator of the Tincher Pitcher Development System of training/coaching and developing pitchers. Along with his daughters Angela and Abby, they have been extremely successful in the growth and development of pitchers across the nation. Denny has coached 5 pitchers who have played in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Womens College World Series (WCWS), well over 200 NCAA D1 pitchers. However, his greatest pride is strongly premised in the 600-plus kids who came to him injured and returned to play even though many doctors and pitching coaches had given up on them.
This season alone Tincher instructors have pitchers headed to Florida, Oklahoma, Ole Miss, Oregon, and many other powerhouse programs.
L&LS was fortunate enough to catch up with Denny and pick his brain about how he and his program have been so very successful in helping pitchers achieve their dreams and goals of playing at the collegiate level.
Denny shared the following with us.
Denny Tincher: What just happened? When we realized that 22 of our pitchers were in Legacy & Legends Softball (L&LS) Top 100 in the 2027 class nationwide, the news took us by surprise. Naturally we celebrated the news, but L&LS started asking questions, specifically how this all came about.
Denny's daughters, Angela and Abby, working together at a recent clinic
It made me think back to our beginnings. When our older daughter, Angela, graduated from Virginia Tech years ago, I looked forward to enjoying normal life again. This had been a fun journey, but I thought it was over. The whole thing started when, at 10-years-old, Angela had decided that she wanted to pitch. She had very big dreams. I felt so inadequate. Living in a very rural area of Virginia, there were no pitching instructors to call for help. Together we tried to figure out this crazy motion, going to college games to shoot video and recording every game that came on TV. At that time, there was no serious internet presence, there were no pitching videos from which to draw, so we just studied successful college pitchers.
Angela was very bright, so we experimented a lot and tweaked every part of the motion. As Angela progressed, eventually winning just about every award college softball had to offer, establishing herself firmly in the record books, and playing professionally in America and Japan, it was fun.
Her younger sister, Abby, was less obsessed with pitching, so we thought life would return to normal when Angela retired. Abby proved us wrong, but that is a different story for a different day. A lot of our history was made public when Angela was college softball’s National Player of the Year, and during the College World Series that year.
Denny’s daughter, Angela, the 2008 NCAA Player of the Year
Afterward, the phone would ring occasionally, and I would help another pitcher. It was not long before people were coming from other states, and I found myself trying to strike a balance between work and this “hobby”.
Finally, my wife approached me with an idea. She had a good job offer. Her income and insurance would give us the breathing room to do what she felt that I was called to do. She was quite insistent. I stepped out on faith. We already had a number of students getting D1 offers, so it was easy to find people who wanted me to come to their areas and work with students. That was not a surprise, but the number of pitching Instructors who began to come and observe was a little unsettling. We realized that, if they were going to teach in our name, we should set up a process that would assure that we were getting quality people and to establish very high standards.
Denny with one of his students, Courtney Layne, who won the Virginia High School AA State Championship this spring. Layne is now freshman pitcher for University of Virginia.
The Tincher Certification Program began. It started as me teaching them. Along the way I personally trained well over 200 D1 pitchers, a few of which were College World Series performers, but I wanted to use our group to impact more kids in a bigger way. Several of our Instructors stepped forward and began the studies of human movement at a deeper level, others dived into the mental side of things, injury prevention and recovery became important, learning challenges were a passion to me, and other members were developing tools, games, and ways of measuring things that, honestly, blew me away.
Our dreams for the organization developed organically as different members began to pursue their passion for different specialties. As we added consistent Zoom training meetings and other regular online opportunities, our members began to inspire one another. We got so busy that we almost lost track of the results, but the L&LS rankings shocked us.
Denny visits with long-time student, Kirsten Fleet, 2023 commit to James Madison University, during the Virginia High School State Tournament. Fleet led her team to the Class A title again this year.
Someone mentioned that we had about 8 pitchers in their top 100 from across the nation for the class of 2027. I informed the group and, that number was updated to 12 pitchers, then 15, and now at least 22. Few of us had any idea that other members were developing students so quickly. This was just one class. Every class was strong. We knew that our students were getting a lot of interest from colleges across the country, but we had not noticed the strength of our younger classes.
We appreciate Legacy and Legends Softball helping us to stop for a moment and realize that we are doing some things right. We still have much to do. My goal is to stay out of the way and watch some of the most creative minds in the pitching world find that next level for our organization. As I tell them constantly, I am thinking about slowing down in the next few years. The more I step back, the more they step up. A lot of people who came to us with very little knowledge or experience are now real leaders in the field. The next version of Tincher Pitching Development Systems is becoming far better than I ever envisioned!
For more information about Tincher Pitching or to find an instructor, visit their website at:
Or email TincherPitching@gmail.com
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