Scholar Athlete: Platonas Demosthenous, Clarke HS

Clark High School senior Platonus Dimosthenos is this week's winner of the News 12 Scholar-Athlete Award, sponsored by Four Leaf Federal Credit Union. Now, his friends call him Platt for short, and a few weeks ago, Nassau County named him its Conference A1 Soccer Player of the Week. You see, Platt is a four-year varsity player, and he says soccer was always his first love for a long time. But Platt, admittedly, also likes to talk a lot, and that's why he's president of the Mock Trial Club. He also founded the Speech and Debate Team. He says it's been cool growing it from the ground up and winning a heated debate is even cooler. You have to convince them to see something subjective the same way as you see it. And I think there's a sort of a sense of accomplishment that comes with doing that, knowing they couldn't have figured out the objective answer on their own. You helped lead them to that. And Platt's also helped lead the track team to glory and awards. He holds five school relay records and is a four-time all-county runner. He's the county champ in the 4x400 and made the All-State team in that event as well. And he said the key to a good relay is a good baton pass and his coach's good advice about getting off to a fast start. You've got to get out like a bat out of hell. So you either look at it like, I need to go eat this guy alive, or I've been in hell all these years. They've just opened a gate. Let me get out. So there's many ways to think about it. I think the hunter mentality is a bit more fun. He embraces it. He loves the speed. He loves training every day at practice and pushing himself to his limit. He's also president of the DECA club and drafted legislation and led a pet food drive while interning for State Senator Steve Rhodes. He has a 99 unweighted GPA and was only 40 points away from a perfect score on the SAT. And like all of our winners, Platt gets a $1,000 scholarship from Four Leaf Federal Credit Union. I'm Kevin Maher.