By Jack Ankony, executive sports editor
When the Prospect football team faces off against Elk Grove in the 2017 season, head coach Mike Sebestyen will see a familiar face on the opposing sideline. On Jan. 13, Miles Osei, a 2009 Prospect graduate, agreed to become the head coach of the Elk Grove football team.
“I was pretty excited to receive the news,” Osei said. “Right away your mind starts rolling about what you want to for sure put in place, and offseason lifting, and minor details, so I was definitely excited and eager to get started and get rolling over there.”
Sebestyen, who has kept in touch with Osei after coaching him throughout his time at Prospect, believes Elk Grove found a great coach.
“I was very excited for him to continue to move forward,” Sebestyen said. “I think it was very important for him to have an opportunity. He’s a young guy that you know will be successful, so I am very happy for him.”
Sebestyen believes that Osei’s dedication and work ethic are what makes him a good fit for their program.
“He strives to expect more out of himself and others,” Sebestyen said. “I think those are the things that when you get the right clientele, he will really draw people to him. He’s a young man who has made a lot of himself, hasn’t had anything handed to him. He has immense talent, but he has had to work for those things.”
After graduating Prospect, Osei went on to play football at the University of Illinois before taking a coaching job at Wheeling High School. Osei started off as the varsity team’s quarterbacks coach and then moved on to be the offensive coordinator the past two seasons.
“I learned a lot culture-wise just about high school kids in general [while at Wheeling],” Osei said. “I built relationships with those kids and figured out ways and found ways to get them on the same page. I definitely learned a lot and will definitely use that going forward going to Elk Grove soon.”
So far at Elk Grove, Osei has started to build relationships with the members of the team to build a good foundation for the season. He has implemented a technique phase and an offseason lifting program in the first weeks he has been at the school. Osei explains that he is trying to build a good base for the coming years.
“I think just becoming a great team and not necessarily a great football team but being great teammates to each other and having that base foundation is crucial to really establish any type of program,” Osei said. “You want those kids to buy in and believe that they are one great team.”
In Osei’s life of football, he explains that he has lived by three main virtues: courage, sacrifice and respect. Osei will try to implement these three philosophies into the Elk Grove football program by having the players read the books “Warrior Elite” and “Boys of Winter.”
“Finding ways to define those words and to showcase those kids what those words mean will really build those kids up and create a culture of winners –– and by winners I don’t mean wins and losses in games if we go 0-9, 9-0 or 5-4 –– that is something we will lay our hat on is those foundational things,” Osei said.
According to Sebestyen, it will be key for Osei to create stability in a program that hasn’t seen much stability recently in order to be successful.
“He’s gonna build from the ground up,” Sebestyen said. “He’s gonna focus on details like trying to build a program that makes people want to be around it and that is an attractive and bring a stable environment to a place that hasn’t really had stability in a few years.”
Heading into the first season as head coach, Osei says that his main goal will be to create a culture and mentality that everyone will play for the team, be great teammates and always fight for each other.
Elk Grove is coming off of a season where they did not win a game, but Osei is not looking at wins and losses to define how successful they will be the first season.
“If we become a great team and focus on those skills that make us become winners and that not necessarily mean the best football team on the field, but developing those winners and those fighters gives us a great chance,” Osei said. “If we have 11 fighters on the field and the other team has 9 fighters, the chances are that we are going to do pretty well.”
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