Andrean junior Michael Mikuly can’t imagine his life without football.
Mikuly didn’t even play the sport until he reached high school, but he has an unwavering passion for it.
“I love the teammates I have,” he said. “I love every single one of them, and I love the devotion every teammate has to the game. We want to make each other better, and if I get down one day and I’m not doing well, my teammates will bring me up.”
Mikuly, a 6-foot-4, 310-pound lineman, also enjoys his role.
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“I love being a lineman,” he said. “I get to protect the quarterback, and I get to do a lot of things that are difficult that a lot of people wouldn’t enjoy. Going against 300-pound guys every day, no one really wants to do that. But I think it’s fun to go head-to-head and push each other instead of a wide receiver running all the time.
“I just like the contact. I like the thud. I like the sound of it, how it echoes.”
Mikuly then paused before adding, “I don’t think I can really be a wide receiver.”
But that’s just fine with Andrean. Nicknamed “Big Mike,” Mikuly has become an indispensable two-way lineman for the 59ers (2-1), who won the Class 2A state title last year and are contenders in 3A this season.
Andrean coach Chris Skinner sees parallels between Mikuly and former offensive lineman Ben Novak, who graduated last winter and enrolled early at Indiana.
“He’s similar to Ben in that he never played football before high school,” Skinner said. “He’s also similar to Ben in that he’s super polite and respectful off the field but has a bit of nasty on the field. Ben goes from never playing football before high school to a three-star recruit and being an early enrollee at IU, the defending national champion, and getting to play on Saturday as a freshman.
“I’m not saying that’s Mike’s path. He doesn’t have any offers at this point where Ben did. But my point is he’s another kid, a big kid blessed with size, who never played football before coming here and then falls in love with it and just keeps getting better every day.”
Mikuly played on the junior varsity team as a defensive lineman in Week 1 of his freshman season. A week later, he played on both sides of the ball. A week after that, he was promoted to the varsity team for the defensive line and special teams.
“I came out for the team two weeks before the season started because I didn’t even know there were summer practices, if I’m being honest,” Mikuly said. “I never played football in my entire life, never touched a football in my entire life. I always thought it was interesting, and I watched it with my dad. But I didn’t really know anything about it. I thought it sounded fun and maybe I could do something with it.
“I didn’t know anything about what to do, and all the guys showed me how to do it. All the seniors this year, all the seniors from the past two years, they showed me so much, and I learned a lot.”
Last season, Mikuly started at center and played a limited role on defense. He has shifted to right guard and has increased his reps at defensive tackle.
Mikuly’s progress has impressed senior defensive lineman Landen Murray.
“There’s a guy who never touched a football, never put pads on before, and he just showed up and worked,” Murray said. “As a big guy, he just worked, he showed up every day, and by Week 1, he was getting playing time. It shows a lot about his character and grit.
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“Then this past year, all the seniors meet in the offseason, and we vote on two underclassmen to be leaders for us, and we voted Big Mike as one of our leaders. That’s how much growth we saw in him as a leader and as a football player.”
Indeed, Mikuly has grown into such an integral part of the team that he’s a member of the 59ers’ leadership council. The seniors tapped Mikuly and junior quarterback Dylan Gore as the two underclassmen to join them.
“That speaks to what his teammates think about him,” Skinner said.
It’s a position Mikuly doesn’t take lightly.
“I take a lot of pride in having my seniors choose me as an underclassman leader,” he said. “I just want to make sure everyone knows what they need to do and they can always come to me, or they can come to someone else, if they need help or if they’re unsure of something — even if it’s not football-related, if it’s other issues, schoolwork, if it’s family, if they need a ride to school one day.
“I just want them to be able to come and talk to me about it and be able to communicate and be open about it. I want them to know they have people in their corner to back them up at all times.”
Mikuly is dedicating more of his time to football. Having also played volleyball and basketball at Andrean, he has decided to drop those sports.
“This year, I’m just going to do football and focus on football and college,” he said. “I can work with trainers to help me with football. I just want to keep going and keep playing football.”