The Softball Pitching Edge

Cheri Kempf is owner and pitching instructor at Club K, the largest indoor training facility for female fastpitch softball players in the country. She has taught and trained thousands of athletes at Club K since 1991. Best known for her pitching expertise, she was a member of a five-person panel assembled by the Amateur Softball Association (ASA) and the United States Olympic Committee to develop universal standards by which to teach fastpitch pitching. Kempf has more than 30 years of experience playing and coaching softball at all levels. In college, Kempf was a three-time All-American, an NAIA Collegiate national champion, and a National Tournament MVP in 1982 with a tournament ERA of 0.00. She then spent four seasons with the world-renowned Raybestos Brakettes, where her team was the ASA Women's Major Level national champion in 1991 and 1992. In 1992 Kempf joined the United States national team and went on to win the gold medal in the World Cup in Beijing, China. Kempf has been inducted into the NAIA Collegiate Hall of Fame, the Missouri State ASA Hall of Fame, and the Missouri Western State College Hall of Fame. A member of the Women's Sports Foundation and the NFCA, she has done extensive motion analysis research with some of the top biomechanists in the country and has coached softball for four years at the NCAA Division I level. She also invented the Spin Right Spinner, a training device used to teach the correct mechanics of the pitching movement to softball and baseball pitchers, and an indoor three-on-three softball game called "RIPS," which is played with a specially designed cage and fitted to indoor competition. Kempf lives in Hermitage, Tennessee. Her favorite leisure-time activities are boating, traveling, and visiting her family in Missouri.