A veteran of a seven-year playing career in professional baseball and eight more seasons as a member of the Grizzlies’ coaching staff, Darin Kinsolving enters his first summer as Gateway’s primary hitting coach in 2019.

Kinsolving, also known as “DK,” played in three different independent leagues — including parts of five seasons in the Frontier League — with eight different teams from 2000-2006. For his career, Kinsolving posted a .292 batting average, 71 home runs, and 330 RBIs over 465 games. He also accumulated an astounding .948 OPS (on-base plus slugging) in 309 career Frontier League games.

Kinsolving and Grizzlies manager Phil Warren were teammates in 2001 and 2002 with the now-defunct Chillicothe Paints of the Frontier League and prior to their professional careers at Southeast Missouri State University. The duo was inducted into the SEMO Athletics Hall of Fame as members of the 1998 Ohio Valley Conference championship team, the first RedHawks group to ever win the OVC and qualify for an NCAA Regional.

Since his retirement following the 2006 season, the 41-year-old Kinsolving has co-owned and operated the Grizzlies Baseball Academy.