Ryan Tinkham

Classroom

Ryan Tinkham is scheduled to graduate in December of 2016 with a degree in sport management. He earned honorable mention All-Valley Scholar Athlete honors in 2015, and he plans to go into coaching after his baseball career is over, hopefully in his home state of California. He holds a cumulative grade-point average of 3.354.

Character

“Ryan Tinkham’s leadership qualities are seen every day by his teammates and coaches. Not only does he speak loud with his bat, but also he is the voice of the locker room. Ryan does an amazing job keeping the locker room ready to play every day. He is like another coach in the locker room. The very best way to describe Ryan’s leadership on this Shocker baseball team is that he can lead with his mouth, his heart or his bat day in and day out. When Ryan Tinkham shows up to the yard, every day you know exactly what you are going to get. Ryan is the type of young man that every coach dreams of one day coaching.” - Todd Butler, Wichita State Head Coach

Tinkham has overcome a lot in his baseball career, including injuries. He was a top-tier catcher in high school and at Oxnard Community College. Today he is a top-of-the-line first baseman for the Wichita State Shockers. Tinkham has overcome climate changes as well, living and growing up in California to playing college baseball in Wichita, Kan. Through some cold days in mid-February and early March it never shows that Tinkham is from Simi Valley, Calif.

Community

Tinkham works the Shocker Baseball Camps to learn to teach children baseball skills and to watch them improve. He has volunteered at the Shocker Athletic Scholarship Organization Ice Cream Social and has spoken at an assembly at Mulvane Middle School. He read to children at Maize Central Elementary School for Family Literacy Night and helped teach baseball skills to League 42, which is a league for inner-city youth in Wichita. He also went to Wesley Medical Hospital to meet with children who have cancer and bonded with a little girl named Hannah who talked the whole team into cutting their hair. He would go back and visit Hannah throughout last year before she passed away last spring.

Competition

In 2016, Tinkham has been named a second-team preseason All-American by Collegiate Baseball. He also has been named to the preseason All-Valley Team. In 2015, he hit .333 with 53 runs, 70 hits, 19 doubles, one triple, 10 home runs, 46 RBI and seven stolen bases and was named second-team All-Valley. He also earned first-team all-region honors and was named to the All-Valley Tournament Team. He played his freshman and sophomore seasons at Oxnard Community College in California.