Photo by Beth Oualline
Football:
Congrats to Bonita’s Noah Mikhail for being one of the five finalists nationally for the Butkus Award, which is given to the top linebacker in high school, college and pro football.
Over the last four years, Mikhail has been a terror to BHS opponents, and that includes his play on both sides of the ball.
However, with his high school career officially over, Mikhail will shortly head to College Station to prepare for his college career as a linebacker at Texas A&M.
In 2023, Mikhail led the entire SGV with 166 tackles, which was 86 more than teammates Cole Parra and Dominic Avelar.
In 2024, No. 3 led the Bearcats with 103 tackles, including seven for-loss.
That was 33 more than Parra (70).
It’s important to keep in mind that every Bearcat starter would have had the opportunity to put up much bigger numbers, but more than half of their games were blowouts, and that allowed Bonita to get their second and third stringers a significant amount of playing time.
On some teams, it wouldn’t have been too unusual for starters to resent not playing four quarters each and every Friday night.
But this was a special group of young men, and they loved seeing their teammates get in and contribute after working their asses off as hard as they did.
Mikhail led BHS in tackles his sophomore, junior and senior campaigns.
Ironically, the only season he wasn’t the top dog was 2021.
And the name at the top of the list was his brother, Kalim Mikhail.
Kalim had 146 tackles, and he had 57 more than Jacob Cordova (89).
Noah trailed his big brother by 71 tackles, but it was still good enough for third most.
2024 High School Butkus Finalists:
Noah Mikhail, Bonita
Madden Faraimo, JSerra
Christian Jones, Westside
Riley Pettijohn, McKinney
Nasir Wyatt, Mater Dei
It’s described this way: Instituted in 1985, The Butkus Award® is one of the elite individual honors, originally given each year to one player in college football: the most impactful linebacker in the game. In 2008, The Butkus Foundation, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, took stewardship of the award to fully realize the original purpose of honoring athletic achievement and service to the community.
Noah Mikhail’s Stats:
2024: 103 tackles, including 27 for-loss & 6 sacks
2023: 166 tackles, 15 for-loss, 1 sack & 2 interceptions
2022: 112 tackles, 13 for-loss, 3 sacks & 1 interception
2021: 75 tackles, 3 for-loss, 1 sack & 2 interceptions
Totals: 456 tackles, 58 for-loss, 10 sacks & 5 interceptions
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