Career
Kitchens was raised in Hephzibah, Georgia. He went on to study at Clemson University and competed for the Clemson Tigers track team He cleared a personal record of 7.89 meters at the Georgia Technical Invitational meet in June 2003.
Kitchens earned National Collegiate Athletic Association Outdoor and Indoor All-America honours in his final year, and also managed to finish runner-up at the National Collegiate Athletic Association East Regionals after winning the Atlantic Coast Conference outdoor long jump title.
Kitchens ranked top ten in the long jump at both the American indoor and outdoor championships in his first year as a professional in 2006. He competed sparingly in the 2007 and 2008 seasons.
He re-emerged in 2009 with a fourth-place finish at the United States of America Indoor Track and Field Championships, followed by a podium finish at the United States of America Outdoors, taking third with a mark of 8.23 m. Typically this would have gained him a spot for the World Championships squad, but because the mark was wind-aided and he did not possess the "A" qualifying standard, he did not get called up.
He began to compete in Europe for the first time that year and set a new best of 7.98 m at a meeting in Salamanca, Spain.
He failed to build on this in 2010 and he finished out of the top ten at the United States of America Outdoors with his season"s best mark of 7.64 m. He started the 2012 season strongly at the Georgia Relays, winning with a wind-assisted jump of 8.27 m and setting a wind-legal personal record of 8.14 m. He placed third at the Colorful Daegu Meeting and the Adidas Grand Prix meet in New York City.
He earned his first ever national selection at the 2012 United States Olympic Trials, where his personal best clearance of 8.21 m was enough for third place in the long jump.