The Story

I fell in love with baseball the second I put a glove on.

An elbow injury at 13, a .150 average at 17, and no college interest as a pitcher. Here's the long way from there to affiliated ball.

I fell in love with baseball the second I put a glove on, and played as much as I could growing up. This was great, until pitching for three separate teams led to an elbow injury at 13 that forced me to miss that whole season. Thinking that my pitching career was behind me, I shifted my focus to playing infield through high school — until I hit .150 as a junior and realized that if I was going to keep playing, something would need to change.

So I begged my coach to let me pitch again. A few decent outings for the summer team turned into the #2 starter role senior year, and though I pitched well, I was throwing 81-84 with no real second pitch, and exactly zero colleges cared. I grew up a UNC fan and went to high school in Chapel Hill, so going there wasn't really a decision. And it was also a no-brainer to try out for the club team instead of just letting my baseball career end.

Jackson on the mound pitching in high school
High SchoolBack on the mound senior year — 25 innings, a 5-0 record, and still no offers.

For the next four years I treated myself like a lab rat, trying to become the best pitcher I could be. Whether it was crazy programs in the weight room, throwing programs I found online, or different nutrition plans, I was always trying something to get better. A lot of it was eyewash, some of it was dangerous, but some of it worked, and I ended up sitting 92 my first start of my senior year. That number convinced me I could play past graduation.

Through 2020 and the first half of 2021, I did an AmeriCorps term with Habitat for Humanity of Durham, building houses during the day. Every night after work I'd lift, then drive to a park and throw into a chain-link fence for hours with a radar gun in the dark, just trying to throw as hard as I possibly could. Eventually I got some real coaching at Baseball Rebellion in Durham, and then I went to indy ball tryouts.

2020–2021Alone at the park, chasing velocity with a radar gun — no team, no coach, no guarantee.

I didn't get signed out of the Frontier League tryout my first go around, but I did get picked up by the Westside Woolly Mammoths of the USPBL. Six weeks later, my manager called and told me the Twins had signed me.

Jackson signing his contract with the Minnesota Twins
Signing DayThe call came six weeks after the Woolly Mammoths picked me up in the USPBL Draft.

From there, I spent two and a half seasons in the Twins org, getting up to High-A in 2023 before blowing out my elbow, undergoing Tommy John surgery and getting released in the following offseason.

Jackson wearing a post-surgery brace the day after Tommy John surgery
Feb 2024The day after Tommy John surgery — released by the Twins the same week.

I spent 2025 and the first part of 2026 in the Frontier League with the Washington Wild Things and Down East Bird Dawgs. I decided to retire this past June, recognizing that I wasn't the same pitcher as before surgery and realizing that I was more excited at the prospect of coaching than continuing to push myself to try to regain my pre-surgery stuff.

I've always loved coaching and been passionate about the whole player development process, whether it was for me or somebody else. I've coached every offseason, no matter where I was, at facilities in North Carolina, Florida, and Arizona at different points. I now run Dark Horse Pitching from Phoenix, AZ, while also coaching at Pitching Coach U with one of my former coaches from the Twins' system.

Jackson charting pitches in the dugout during his time with the Twins organization
Twins OrganizationCharting in the dugout — the same eye for detail that shows up in every plan I build now.
Why it matters for coaching

I'm not selling a shortcut. I didn't take one.

The 84-to-92 jump wasn't one program or one gadget. It was years of trial and error — some of it smart, some of it eyewash, some of it probably dangerous — that eventually stacked into real change. That's a slower, less exciting story than most "how I added 10 mph" content, but it's the true one, and it's the one I actually coach from.

I've trained as a plant-based athlete through all of it too — a 595 lb deadlift and a 94.9 mph peak didn't require animal protein to get there, which is a question I get asked constantly and I'm always happy to talk through.

Tommy John surgery and the release that came with it taught me something a healthy career never would have: what it actually takes to rebuild a delivery under real physical constraints, not just optimize one that already works. That's part of why I was more excited about coaching than about chasing my old stuff back.

Today that shows up in two places: coaching in person at Pitching Coach U in Phoenix, and building out Dark Horse Pitching's remote coaching and content — with an eye toward an MLB front office role down the line, where the same development mindset applies at scale.

What's next

Want the version of this built for your development?

The same mechanical rebuild-and-data approach that got me from 84 to 92 is what drives every remote coaching plan I run.

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