By Rich Chrampanis
MIDDLETOWN – On the campus of Brookdale Community College, Aneesh Agrawal navigates around the halls of High Tech High School proud to talk about an elite academic institution that brings the top students from the Jersey Shore just like he does talking about his one season as the quarterback of the Middletown South Eagles.
Agrawal is just one example of a student-athlete who can be at an elite level both academically and athletically. There are no varsity sports at High Tech, but Agrawal isn’t the only athlete who goes back to a home district to plays for their hometown team. Two members of Manasquan’s state championship football team are High Tech students and Asbury Park running back Namir Argilagos had what he claims was the “best week of his life” after running for two 4th quarter touchdowns to give the Blue Bishops a Central Jersey Group 1 football state championship and earning acceptance to the University of Notre Dame two days prior to playing for a title.
It’s fun to have the best of both worlds,” Agrawal said in the senior lounge at High Tech.
“When I come here during the day, I get my work done and then I just drive over to South and go to practice and then go home and get some more work done. I have the two places separate, but I’m able to enjoy both of them equally so it works out pretty well.”
His entire four year academic career has been at High Tech High. After three years on the Holmdel football squad, he made the transfer to Middletown South for his senior season. He finished 6th in the Shore Conference with 1618 passing yards and 16 touchdown passes on the way to a 7-4 record. While the Eagles fell short in their quest to repeat as a state champion, Agrawal was grateful to be part of a team that packed the stands every Friday night.
“When I got there, the kids were super nice,” Agrawal said. “It was a lot of fun. Every Friday night I knew so many people were coming to the game. Even my friends at High Tech would come to the game and send me SnapChats. It wasn’t the season we wanted, but there were a lot of wins and a great experience in my last year.”
Playing quarterback at Middletown South is high profile and plenty of people have seen Agrawal’s handiwork, from his TD run and TD pass in an opening week win against RBC to a 61 yard bomb to Jeremy Joyce in a driving rain to help beat Rumson-Fair Haven. But if there were an academic highlights show, it would overshadow his outstanding athletic accomplishments.
Agrawal works from a laptop at High Tech High School in Lincroft. He makes the short drive from the Brookdale Community College campus to Middletown South where he competes athletically in football and track and field.
For starters, there’s his academic equivalent of passing yards – his score on the ACT. Aneesh achieved a perfect score of 36, something that is reserved for the top 0.1 percent of the nation. In the summer prior to his senior year, Agrawal and four of his classmates represented High Tech at the Technology Student Association in Nashville. The group developed recognition software to help learn sign language. Not only did the project win first place in the national competition, but the judging panel suggested that the High Tech team get a patent for its “Ensign” software.
There was no roar of the crowd when the Ensign program was able to correctly determine via a webcam if you could correctly sign a letter or number, but it’s importance far outweighs the scoreboard on a high school football field.
“When I was working on the software project, I was in my room late at night and there was no one there, even my Mom was asleep,” Agrawal said. “Football, so many people are out there watching you, you can feed off the crowd. It’s a fun game that I hope I can keep playing. I’ll definitely keep coding, but football is such a thrill and Friday night’s and scoring touchdowns is awesome.”
Football could be in his future as Agrawal waits to hear from some of the nation’s elite academic institutions. The Massachussets Institute of Technology, known around the world as M.I.T., plays Division III football and Agrawal could have the best of both worlds by playing the game he loves and continuing his work in computer software development there. Aneesh has also applied to Ivy League schools Harvard, Princeton and Yale where he would likely pursue his other sport, throwing the javelin in track and field, if he decides to attend one of those schools.
No matter where he chooses to attend college, Agrawal has the tools he’s acquired both in sports and in the classroom to succeed. While his sports career is important to him, what he does in college and beyond in his area of expertise will make a far greater impact.
“The purpose of technology is to advance society,” Agrawal said. “That’s a great thing we learn at High Tech is how to use technology to help the world. When you make a solution to it, it feels even better rather than having a textbook problem. Having a real world problem and solving it feels much better and that’s the purpose of technology.”
