- December 4, 2025
Football. Weightlifting. Wrestling. Track and Field. Swimming.
No one had played five varsity sports in one year at Seabreeze High School until 17-year-old Luke Cloer came along. If you ask the graduating senior, that's exactly why he did it, even if that meant a difficult fall semester where he would be doing about 36 hours worth of school work and practice in 48 hours.
"That was tough, but I figured if I can get through that, then I could show an example for everyone else that you can do what you want to do, as well," Cloer said.
A lot of people told him at the start of his senior year that he was doing too much — too many sports, too many clubs and too many advanced classes. But Cloer said he knew he could do it.
Come May 30, he will celebrate his efforts by crossing the graduation stage at the Ocean Center with his fellow Sandcrabs.
"The fact that I'm about to walk on a stage and prove to everyone that I was able to do it, that, like I said, I want to make the impossible happen — that's going to hit me a lot," Cloer said.
Plus, graduation will mark a new chapter in his life: Come next fall, Cloer will be attending Stetson University, where he will be playing Division 1 football for the Hatters. He doesn't know yet what he will major in; maybe engineering, maybe political science, he's changed his answer a few times this year. He'll definitely minor in sports management, he said.
"We just have to figure out the major, which some people argue is the more important part," Cloer said as he laughed.
As a student, he loves to be on the go, and he loves his teammates. Cloer has a lot of good memories of his four years at Seabreeze, but a standout is coming to school dressed as Santa Claus during his sophomore year.
Cloer, who along with other football players, has participated in an initiative to read books to local elementary school kids. One year, he did so while wearing a Santa Claus costume, which he was allowed to keep over the weekend and wear to school the following Monday.
"Everyone loved it," he recalled. "People were asking for pictures. People were in a happy mood. That's definitely a core memory in my heart."
Cloer is also part of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, and has served as a Student Council Ambassador. From joining the National Spanish Society to his school's ultimate frisbee team, Cloer was a member of over seven clubs at Seabreeze. He also tried to start two clubs himself: a debate team and a boxing club, but neither panned out.
Every time he has been asked to give a tour to a new student at Seabreeze, his advice has been to join at least one club, and one sport.
"Honestly, it made the high school experience so much better," he said. "Obviously I went to the other spectrum of that."
Football, however, is what helped shape him into the person he is today. Cloer said it not only led to a physical transformation, but that football boosted his confidence, particularly when he was made a captain in his junior year.
"That was the turning point of, 'I can lead people and I can set examples for people,'" Cloer said. "That shifted my entire attitude. When I have a test, I'm not taking that test to show I can do it. I'm taking that test to show everyone can do it. When I try to break records here at Seabreeze, I'm not saying. 'Oh, I Luke Cloer can break records.' It's anyone at Seabreeze here can break records if they really push themselves to it."
Seabreeze Principal Tucker Harris said that if his own son can one day grow up to be like Cloer, he'll be very happy as a father.
"It's just been an honor to watch him do his thing," Harris said. "He's super cool. He has a very bright future."
High school can be hard for kids, Harris added. What's unique about Cloer is that he's uniquely himself. Harris has worked toward a culture at Seabreeze that lets students be themselves.
"It's nice to have an environment where you can be you," Harris said.
The best advice Cloer said he's ever received is to be himself. Once he embraced that, he became happier as a person, he said.
But Cloer said he's not an outlier at Seabreeze.
"There are so many students here who are just as exceptional as me — who are just as unique as me in their own right, and they just need to find that confidence like I did to be who they want to be, and once they do that, they'll go from an amazing person to an even better person," Cloer said. "That's when they'll start really having fun with their life and that's when they'll start really embodying being a Sandcrab. That's my biggest wish — is that people can find a passion like I have with being social, sports clubs, all that. Just find one, two, how many passions they have. Find it, latch on and go with it all the way."
