Kenny Tracy is not the most outspoken candidate for student body president.
"I'm still very much a shy person," he said Wednesday afternoon in the Russell House Starbucks, his voice all but drowned out by the murmur of conversation and whirring blenders around him. "The first day of class, I might talk to the person next to me, but I'm not the one who just barges in the room and says, 'Hey, everybody.'"
But shyness is relative and Tracy today is "like night and day," he said, from the person he was in high school. "I wasn't very involved in high school, so I wasn't really passionate about anything."
At USC, he's found that passion in Dance Marathon, Student Government and intramural sports, including "all kinds of sports I never thought I'd play," he said, like soccer, basketball, flag football, sand volleyball and floor hockey — though not entirely with the success he hopes for.
"I haven't quite gotten the (championship) shirt yet," he added. "We're still shooting for that."
But his "niche," he said, is in SG, which he says helped shape his personality and made him more outgoing, even early on in his college career.
"Freshman Council helped a lot, because I was thrust into a group of proven leaders," he said. "It was either adapt or go to the wayside."
His time in SG since has been dictated more by plugging away at his niche than by an overriding ambition.
"Some people come in, from what I've gathered talking to different people, freshman year and they're like, 'Okay, I need to take this step, this step and this step to be student body president,'" he said. "That wasn't me at all."
But Tracy, currently the secretary of student services, said he doesn't seek validation from within SG so much as from students who are more "out of the loop," including the core group of friends he met living in Bates House his freshman year, which he regards as a bonding experience in itself.
"They aren't involved in a bunch of extracurricular activities," he said. "When I do programs like Carolina Cab or safety walks or stuff like that, and I get random responses from them, saying like, 'Oh, I saw this. Really, really good job,' from people who aren't necessarily in the loop ... that's kind of he impact I want to have."
Tracy said he hoped he could establish programs that will impact "a wide range of students" for years to come and his emphasis is on feasibility over grandiose plans.
Among his key points: reforming USC's advisement process, bringing the Student Legal Service initiative to fruition, establishing a "Go Garnet" sustainability program and revamping the rewards system for lesser-attended sports.
"I don't really have a big program I'm trying to get off the ground next year that I'm not already working on," he said. "A lot of [my platform] is tweaking what we already have."
Likewise, the candidate himself is fairly understated. Tracy doesn't dominate the headlines and tends to prefer quiet, behind-the-scenes leadership. He worked on establishing Carolina Cab and Student Legal Services, but former Vice President Katie Thompson and vice presidential candidate Chase Mizzell have dominated much of the attention surrounding those programs.
But he said his involvement with them reflects a strong track record in SG and matches a concrete plan for the coming year.
"I honestly think that a student body president needs to have a track record for getting things done," Tracy said. "I've proven to students that they're electing someone not just based on promises; there's substance behind what I'm saying. I feel like that's what I have to offer. [It's] not only what you've done in the past but having a concrete plan for the future. It's not just vague generalizations of what needs to get done."
Between the two, Tracy says he — with his friends back home in Marietta, Ga. — has found the product of a once-uninvolved high school student who's found his niche.
"I go back home, and I talk to my friends, and I tell them the stuff I've been doing here," he said. "They're like, 'Who are you?'"
