The first time Mike Kinkade slipped a jersey over his head with “U-S-A” stitched across the front, he paused.

It wasn’t the lights. It wasn’t the cameras. It wasn’t even the Olympics—not yet. But it was everything he’d dreamed of since he was a kid.

“The chance to get to represent your country was always a dream. Growing up watching the Olympics, this is a dream. I always thought I'd get a chance to play, and then they took baseball out of the Olympics, and didn't think I had a chance. Then it came back, and I had an opportunity, and I was just fortunate enough to get selected for that team.”

Kinkade has never been the loudest in the room. He doesn’t chase headlines. He doesn’t puff his chest. But for the last three decades, he's been the kind of steady, selfless presence that USA Baseball has quietly built its legacy around.

And now, 25 years after standing atop the Olympic podium in Sydney, Kinkade is still giving back, still shaping the future of the program he once helped lift into history.

In the year 2000, the United States Olympic Baseball Team wasn’t favored.

It wasn’t flashy. It wasn’t made up of major league stars. It was a group of grinders. Of minor leaguers. Of players like Mike Kinkade.

And against all odds, they won it all.

“We were a bunch of minor leaguers who weren't supposed to win, you know, a bunch of no names, although a lot of those guys became well known afterwards after the fact,” Kinkade chuckled as he reflected on the moment.

Kinkade, then a third baseman with the New York Mets, batted .207 in the Olympic tournament, contributing timely hits, three RBIs, and four runs. He wasn’t the flashiest name on the roster.

But he was dependable.

He still remembers every detail of that final game—the nerves, the energy, the disbelief as they toppled international powerhouse Cuba to win the country’s first-ever gold medal in Olympic baseball.

But it’s the moment after the final pitch that stays with him.

“Leading up to it, it was just another baseball game. We played the same way the entire time. We won a game that way, just by surprising and playing the game of baseball. So that's when I talk about the surreal, all of a sudden it was over, and we're standing on the podium,” Kinkade recalled, pausing for a moment. “We're just playing baseball, just trying to win the next game, and all sudden we hear our national anthem.”

Three years later, in 2003, it all came crashing down.

Team USA, trying to qualify for the 2004 Olympics in Athens, fell heartbreakingly short. Kinkade was there—one of the returning gold medalists. But instead of triumph, he was left with silence.

For a competitor like Kinkade, who had felt the weight and pride of that jersey, the pain ran deep, and it didn’t fade. But in that heartbreak, a fire reignited.

In 2006, Mike Kinkade got the call again.

Older now, a veteran, and carrying the burden of the loss in 2003.

The mission was clear: qualify Team USA for the 2006 Olympics in Beijing and do it in Cuba—baseball’s most intimidating stronghold.

The Americas Qualifier was brutal. Only two teams would earn a ticket to the Games. The field included powerhouses: Venezuela, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Canada, and, of course, Cuba.

But something special happened in Havana.

Kinkade delivered, again. He hit .333 in the tournament and drove in a team-high 11 RBIs, helping USA Baseball not just qualify—but win the whole thing, beating Cuba in front of a packed house at Estadio Latinoamericano.

“In my mind, in my heart, (2003 and 2006) they're the same. We didn't come home with a gold medal in ‘06, but in terms of the pressure we had, the team that we put together and then winning, put them right up there in terms of the top of my career highlights.”

But long after the cameras stopped rolling, Kinkade’s love for the game never faded.

From 2011–2014, he coached in the Seattle Mariners’ minor league system, including a stint managing the Peoria Mariners. From 2016–2019, he led the Whitman County American Legion Program, followed by a role as head coach at Pullman High School. In 2020, he moved into college baseball with Cal State University–Bakersfield.

Today, he’s the hitting and catching coach at Arizona Christian University, entering his second season with the team in 2025.

And year after year, he returns to USA Baseball—not because he has to. But because he believes in it.

Now in his third straight year as the 13U/14U Athlete Development Program (ADP) hitting coordinator, Kinkade shows up each summer to coach the next generation—not just with knowledge, but with quiet conviction.

He’s served in countless other roles as well: the inaugural MLB Draft Combine, the Women’s National Team Development Program, the first-ever Girls Camp in 2021, and the PDP League.

Each time, he brings more than just drills and reps. He brings perspective.

“We want to show how important wearing the USA across the chest, you're representing your country. You go to these other countries and you represent your country, and how important that is, and how much pride you should take in that, and everything you do with baseball, on the field off the field, as you're representing our country.”

Twenty-five years removed from that golden summer in Sydney, Kinkade looks around at how far USA Baseball has come.

“Looking at what USA Baseball was back then,and how they've grown that into what it is now, it's just awesome thinking that I was part of that. Back when it wasn't all this and it's just grown into something huge.”

He may not be the loudest voice in the room, but his presence is felt in the hearts of players, in the DNA of USA Baseball, and in every quiet moment when a kid pulls on a jersey for the first time and realizes what it means to play for something bigger.

And in that way, Kinkade’s legacy is not just gold.

It’s pure.