Chris McCoy made just the right pitch at the recent National DECA conference in Anaheim, Calif.
But, unlike the pitches he throws for the Kelso High School baseball team, this fastball helped the 18-year-old land in the office of national DECA president.
A personable teen with blondish brown hair and a wide grin, McCoy said that no matter what turn the election took, he knew he'd end up a winner.
"My whole philosophy behind the whole thing is that if it's meant to be, it's meant to be," he said.
DECA is a national association of marketing education students. The group provides teachers and members with educational and leadership development activities.
McCoy said that he will spend the next year in Seattle, living with two friends. He will travel to fall leadership conferences across the country, give motivational speeches, work with members of the DECA national advisory board and act as the team leader and help to coordinate the group's publications.
This last school year, he's had three opportunities looming about — accepting a scholarship to play baseball at the University of Washington, signing a pro baseball contract or becoming national DECA president.
"I didn't want to look back five years from now and say, 'Why didn't I try that?' " McCoy said. "DECA has been my key to success, and that was my rationale."
But holding the top national office is about more than just adding one more thing to his resume.
"I'm 18 years old," McCoy said. "There's so much I have to learn about leadership. I'll be working with a very diverse and talented group of individuals. It's going to be a great experience."
He still plans to play baseball for the UW Huskies and hopes to be a major leaguer some day.
"Coach (Ken) Knutson, the Husky coach, has been very supportive, and knew that if I won, I'd have to take a year off from school," he added. McCoy said that if he isn't drafted into pro ball, he'd enjoy working as a marketing director for a team.
McCoy was among 17,000 DECA members at the conference who heard his name announced as president on April 28
McCoy said that even before the news came, he knew the election was going to be his.
"There was like six minutes to go and I had about 100 people around me," McCoy said. "And I just started crying. I started crying because it was like God was talking right to me … and I just knew."
His grandfather, Jack McCoy, who Chris has lived with for three years, was with him at the conference when the announcement came.
"It was such an emotional thing, almost like euphoria," the 65-year-old McCoy said. "It was just a tremendous feeling. I was so proud of that kid it was just unreal."
Rick Davis, a marketing instructor at Kelso High School and McCoy's DECA adviser, also had plenty of confidence in McCoy's abilities, even during the times when it seemed McCoy's seemingly endless source of energy was flagging.
"In listening to him, compared to the other (candidates), he came across as a real person and the others were, I don't know, kind of trying to be something they aren't," Davis said. "And over the long haul of two and three days of campaigning, that kind of comes out."
At first, McCoy was running against seven other DECA members from across the nation. After marathon-style interviews, speeches and probing questions from the conference delegates, the field was weeded down to three, then two — McCoy and an opponent from Texas.
"If they'd announced the other kid's name, I would have been disappointed, but I would have walked away knowing all of these people in the community, my family, my adviser, my school, the people in the state, how much they were inspired and believed in one thing."