Plymouth High athlete earns prestigious state-wide honor
Anirudh Krishnan is pictured competing for the Plymouth cross country team.
Plymouth High School senior Anirudh Krishnan could be best described as an anti-couch potato.
Instead of sitting on comfy furniture and flipping channels throughout the first 17-plus years of his life, Krishnan has made an impact — as a student, community difference-maker and athlete.
Earlier this week, Krishnan was named one of just 13 Division 1 athletes from across Michigan to receive the MHSAA/Farm Bureau Insurance Scholar-Athlete Award and the $2,000 college scholarship that goes along with it.
Students applying for the Scholar-Athlete Award must carry at least a 3.5 (on a 4.0 scale) grade-point average and have previously won a letter in a varsity sport in which the Michigan High School Athletic Association sponsors a postseason tournament.
Amazing accomplishments
Other requirements for the applicants were to show active participation in other school and community activities and produce an essay on the importance of sportsmanship in educational athletics.
Krishnan far exceeded those requirements.
In addition to running four years of varsity cross country for the Wildcats (he will be competing in his fourth season of track & field this spring), Krishnan trained in taekwondo during his first three years of high school and participated in Unified Sports basketball as a junior.
He earned All-State honors in cross country in November, placing 21st overall in the D1 state meet with a time of 15 minutes, 33.4 seconds. He also earned Academic All-State honors for cross country and track.
Additionally, the well-rounded Krishnan founded and serves as director of AK Friendship Circle, a nonprofit organization supporting young adults with disabilities; and earned the Ted Lindsay Foundation Family Courage Award for contributions toward autism education.
That’s not all. Krishnan served two years on student council at Plymouth and participated in University of Michigan’s Youth Dialogues on Race and Ethnicity in Metropolitan Detroit.
Bright future
He will attend Johns Hopkins University beginning in the fall and study applied mathematics and statistics.
In the essay students were required to submit with their entries, Krishnan wrote, in part:
“In the journey to building good sportsmanship, coaches are key mentors. Sometimes in the heat of intense competition, winning seems to be the only thing that matters.
“However, having a coach who can provide a sense of balance and guide athletes to have a positive mindset and attitude is critical for educational athletics.
“In every sporting event, someone wins, and someone loses. Accepting victory with joy while not gloating over your opponents, and accepting defeat with grace while not being antagonistic to the winner reflects on the character of an athlete.”
The 32 scholarship recipients will be recognized March 16 during the MHSAA Boys Basketball Finals at the Breslin Student Events Center in East Lansing.
Ed Wright can be reached at 734-664-4657 or edwright@socialhousenews.com.
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