In the fall of 2006, Miles Osei stepped into a state powerhouse football program as a freshman at Prospect High School. He bided his time for one season, stepping into the starting role as just a sophomore ahead of the 2007 campaign.
Moments after Osei secured one of his first victories as a starter, the left-handed quarterback felt a tap on his shoulder as he recollected his breath in the locker room.
Osei looked up and locked eyes with Brent Pearlman, the longtime Prospect head football coach who amassed 103 victories during his tenure. Pearlman hadn’t started an underclassmen signal caller in nearly 10 years, but Osei commanded the three-time state champion coach’s attention long before he cracked his varsity squad as a freshman.
“Coach Pearlman pulled me aside and said, ‘You can take this thing as far as you really want to go,’” Osei said. “It was going to be a lot of work, but at that moment I realized I could do something that as a quarterback hadn’t been done before in (school) history.”
Ever a keen evaluator of talent and potential, Pearlman sparked a fire in his young quarterback during that fateful Friday night in Mount Prospect. Osei rose to statewide and regional prominence as a dual-threat passer, earning a scholarship to the University of Illinois.
Following his playing career, Osei shifted into the coaching sphere, earning a head coach job at Elk Grove High School at just 23 years old. Six years later, he moved downstate to become the head coach at Kankakee High School in 2023.
Now, Osei has forged a new path, becoming the head coach at Evanston Township High School. The move, announced Jan. 25, fills a vacancy left by Mike Burzawa’s resignation following 17 years at the program’s helm.
For ETHS Athletic Director Chris Livatino, the Wildkits weren’t in the market for a run-of-the-mill candidate. The hiring committee targeted a dynamic leader.
“He impressed myself and our committee right from the very first interview,” Livatino said. “He checked all our boxes, and then some.”
With the hiring, Osei became the first Black head coach in program history. The 32-year-old is no stranger to breaking barriers, having been the first-ever Black starting quarterback at Prospect and the first-ever Black head coach in the Mid-Suburban East Conference.
Osei said he looks at his ability to provide representation for younger athletes of color as a “unique opportunity” he won’t take lightly.
“One of the players I met the first day said, ‘It’s cool that someone who looks like me is our head coach,’” Osei said. “The weight of that comment absolutely locked me in. It’s like, ‘Man, this absolutely means a lot to a lot of kids.’”
***
While his collegiate and postgraduate careers have revolved around the gridiron, Osei’s first love was baseball.
Osei first crossed Prospect baseball coach Ross Giusti’s radar as a middle schooler, but he entered rarified territory in 2007. Giusti, who eclipsed the 500 career-win mark in 2023, said Osei is one of just two players to ever crack his varsity team as a freshman.
“He was a five-tool athlete,” Giusti said. “I tease him all the time that he probably could have taken baseball as far as he wanted to. He had every tool that you needed to be a Division I baseball player, but he took a path to challenge himself at the Division I football level to see if he could do it.”
Osei said playing football, basketball and baseball throughout his childhood ensured he’d never burn out, as he’d always pick up a second wind whenever it came time to transition from one sport to another.
The transition from baseball to football over the summer before his sophomore year illuminated a lofty path for the future Fighting Illini athlete. Pearlman said Osei seized the opportunity ahead of him and — though he experienced some early growing pains — his ability on the football field made for must-see action.
“He was like having another coach on the field,” Pearlman said. “He’s one of those guys that was courageous enough at that moment to lead.”
John Coen, who played both football and baseball with Osei and later signed to the University of Illinois-Chicago as an infielder, said Osei’s intensity and work ethic on a day-to-day basis made him both a vocal leader and a model to follow.
Coen pointed toward Osei’s on-field intelligence as an attribute that jumped off the charts.
“Miles was just a sponge,” Coen said. “He had this laser focus. (He was) doing it then to be great on a week-to-week basis from a football perspective, but now he’s using that knowledge to propel a career post college. It’s no surprise. He’s got some lofty goals and wants to win.”
By the time Osei’s senior year of high school arrived, he had garnered several Group of Five football offers. But Pearlman designed a new offense for Osei’s final season at Prospect — the Miles Only Backfield.
After tallying 6,924 total yards and 77 touchdowns during his junior and senior seasons, Osei received a late offer from Illinois. It was an opportunity he couldn’t pass up.
***
Although Osei managed to log enough action to avoid a redshirt as a true freshman in Champaign, the former All-State honoree occupied a reserve role on the depth chart. He served as the backup to Nathan Scheelhaase, who is currently the passing game coordinator for the Los Angeles Rams.
Scheelhaase and Osei both carried four years of eligibility into the 2010 season, so playing time appeared at a premium for Osei. He told his coaching staff that he wanted to help the team win games in any way possible. First, he joined the kickoff return unit as a sophomore in 2011. Then, he shifted to wide receiver during the final eight games of his junior campaign.
“That’s a lot of the unseen behind-the-door stuff that gets missed by a lot of people,” Osei said. “You go from being that person that everybody relies on to someone that just has to be ready to go at every snap. It definitely takes a mental toll, but it made me a better player, a better coach now and a better person through asking ‘What are the little things I can do to get on that field.’”
As fate would have it, Osei’s most productive game as a pass catcher occurred just minutes away from his newfound stomping grounds: at the old Ryan Field. On Nov. 24, 2012, Osei hauled in three receptions for 34 yards during a 50-14 loss to Northwestern.
The Mount Prospect native, who occupied a Swiss army knife-esque role for the Fighting Illini, recorded 77 rushing yards, 177 passing yards, 213 return yards, 399 receiving yards and a touchdown reception during his collegiate career.
Osei didn’t have to wait long for post collegiate possibilities to present themselves. He fielded graduate assistant offers from Illinois and Wisconsin, but Osei turned down both for another opportunity with a familiar face.
Just months after receiving his college diploma, Osei joined Pearlman’s staff at Wheeling High School as an assistant football coach.
“I’d have given him a coaching job right out of high school,” Pearlman said. “He’s just that type of leader. I just saw a guy that demanded respect, a guy that was extremely organized. I saw a guy that the kids loved.”
Just as Pearlman entrusted a then-sophomore Osei with his offense in 2007, he handed offensive play-calling duties to Osei during his second year on the Wheeling staff.
Soon enough, Osei’s stock soared high enough to land his first head coaching job at Elk Grove in 2017. In the two seasons prior to Osei’s hiring, the program went 2-25. In 2022, Osei led the school to its first 7A state playoff appearance since 2013.
During that 2022 season and playoff appearance, Pearlman served as Osei’s assistant coach.
“That was probably one of my favorite years of coaching I’ve had all time,” Pearlman said. “Miles is an original. He’s a copy of nobody. He’s got a way that he’s going to run a program, and it was just awesome to watch it. … I told him, ‘Your best days are still ahead of you, and they’re going to be incredible.’”
***
Osei, who went 21-3 during his two-year stint at Kankakee, said much of the ETHS job’s allure centered around finding long-term stability for his family. He and his wife Susie Osei — who served as a school counselor at Kankakee — lived in Evanston during the earlier stages of Osei’s coaching career.
Now, Osei is moving his high school sweetheart and two daughters back to a community that he said has always felt like home. He added that he could see himself coaching at ETHS for decades to come.
“There has been an incredible amount of hours put in,” Osei said. “The only way you can make it work is when you put your family right where you work and make them part of the program. At the high school level, you can make the community school immersed into your family. That’s something my girls are pretty excited about.”
As he guides the Wildkits into a new era, Osei has reinforced that the ETHS squad is not his program, but rather belongs to every student-athlete and coach on the team.
Osei’s vision made an instant impression on Wildkit receiver Canaan Handcox. He said his teammates have quickly embraced their new head coach.
“He wants to make sure he has a great coaching staff by his side and that everyone is on the same page,” Handcox said. “Our offseason is going to look a lot different than it did the last couple of years.”
Despite his young age, Osei said 10-plus seasons of high school coaching have presented him with a bevy of lessons he’ll lean on as he attacks his new role.
Osei said his process will start with assembling a passionate and knowledgeable support staff that will maximize what he considers a core group of players “that wants to be really good.”
“My goal is to make (ETHS) one of the most respected programs in the state,” Osei said. “It will be a lot of work, but I truly believe Evanston has all the resources, all the kids needed to make that happen. We just need to circle the wagons, make sure that the kids who live in Evanston stay at (ETHS), make sure we develop those who are already here into great teammates and great people.”
Email: [email protected]
X: @jakeepste1n
Related Stories:
— ‘The spirit of Evanston’: ETHS Coach Donald Michelin Sr.’s impact extends beyond the track
