Devito "All Star" on, off field

By Chris & Laurie Mueller

I've seen a lot of outstanding baseball players come through DeQuincy and a lot of excellent students. It's rare, though, to see a combination of both, such as I've witnessed this year. I'm talking about a young man named Nick Devito, a senior at DeQuincy High School. I had the pleasure of coaching Nick this season. Devito has excelled in the classroom all of his life and this season he was a great leader for the Tigers on the diamond as the team's catcher.

Student of the Year in middle school and high school, Devito made banner roll 11 years out of 12. Nick has obviously excelled at school and has big plans for his future. They probably don't include baseball, but that's understandable as he scored a 34 on his ACT and was awarded a $58,000 a year scholarship at prestigious Vanderbilt University. Nick plans to study Pre-Med and become a doctor one day.

Devito was accepted into the honors program at LSU and Baylor, but after visits to all three schools, he chose Vanderbilt. Nick will finish high school with a 4.16 GPA and will graduate Summa Cum Laude.

This past weekend Nick was named to the LHSAA Composite Academic All State baseball team and received his award at the state baseball championships in Sulphur.

The Composite Team consists of players from all classifications with a 4.00 GPA or better. His baseball accomplishments this year include leading the team in average with a 387 mark, hits with 29, RBIs - 22, doubles - 8 and on base average - 500.

In addition, as the team's signal caller, he had an outstanding .993 fielding percentage, making only one error all year and throwing out 15 runners that tried to steal on him.

The quality that stands out the most about Nick is that he is an outstanding young man and student, a very likable and coachable player, loved by his coaches and teammates alike. His parents are Larry and Maria Devito.