A year ago, Josh Gesky was wrapping up his junior football season, playing his last game with older brother Jeremy, as the Panthers bowed out in the first round of the IHSA Class 4A playoffs. At that time, not even Josh could have guessed his next in-game action would come in the Big Ten.

During the past year, the 6-foot-7 left tackle saw his recruitment pick up at a rapid rate, culminating with several NCAA Division I scholarship offers as the world came to a halt amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.

Gesky chose to play for the University of Illinois, and with a 5.2 grade point average at Manteno, was given the option to graduate high school a semester early and enroll at Illinois in the spring semester to get a head start. But with the postponement of this year’s prep football season to the spring because of COVID-19, that made Josh’s decision a tricky one — should he graduate early or stay the course and have a senior football season?

“Even now I’ve been wishing for November and December to come around and hoped that [Illinois Gov. JB] Pritzker would make a decision that we could play, but he’s not,” Josh said. “It was a very tough decision because I’ve been playing with these kids since freshmen year, but in the end, I can’t pass up that free tuition for half a year and get that jump on everyone.

“And Illinois has some great linemen there right now [who] could get looked at from the NFL, so if I could get some insight on that, it would help give me a great jump.”

Playing football at a high level has become a tradition for the Gesky family. Josh’s grandfather, Gerald, played a year in the NFL for the Detroit Lions in 1965. His father, Joel, played on the line for the Nebraska Cornhuskers and won a trio of Big 8 Conference titles during the first half of the 1990s, and Jeremy plays for Olivet Nazarene University.

It was Jeremy, just a year older, who helped Josh get started on his recruitment.

“When I started getting recruited, I didn’t know much about the process,” Jeremy said. “I wasn’t on Twitter until junior year, so I helped him set his Twitter up, and I helped him edit his film to get him looks.”

Josh said Twitter became an instrumental tool in getting his name out to coaches, as did going with Jeremy on his college visits. Everything went up from there.

“What was nice was knowing what coaches to contact because they’re around me,” Josh said. “Once one coach likes you and spreads the word around to other coaches that he likes you, you’re respectful, you’re smart. I just like how they’re able to talk.”

Josh chose the Illini instead of several other scholarships, including Kansas and Syracuse, as well as interest from Harvard, which does not give football scholarships.

It was academics that weighed heavy on the mind of Josh, who will take some already earned college credits to Champaign-Urbana next semester to begin his path to becoming an anesthesiologist. With an extra semester and the potential of a redshirt year, he has plenty of time to take advantage of the academic side of his scholarship just as much as he does on the gridiron.

“I’m trying to get as many credits as I can,” he said. “I plan on taking summer school there, too, and use all 5 1/2 years I can of my scholarship. If I decide to change majors, because I hear all the time people get in what they think they want to do and change their major five times, I like the option I can change my major and not lose money.”

No matter the sport, such as soccer during his youth or football with the Panthers, Josh has been able to find athletic success despite a childhood diagnosis of Type 1 Diabetes, something his parents helped him manage.

“[Not playing sports] never crossed my mind because sports have just always been a part of my life,” Josh said. “My parents have been so supportive through everything. They’ve never told me I can’t play a sport because of my blood sugar.”

Joel said the worst thing you can have as a parent is find out your kid is sick, and you will do anything you can to take the illness away from them.

“I never thought he’d be able to play sports, and he did,” Joel said. “... Some use it as an excuse, and he used it as a motivating factor to overcome it.”

The events of the past year have happened quickly, but they become even more rapid when considering Josh, similar to his brother, didn’t really play football until beginning high school. But with football being such a family tradition, Josh said it didn’t take long to realize learning offensive line play came naturally.

“I was confused. I remember I was standing there at center and [assistant] Coach [Sammie] Sabbah was talking to the left tackle, and I had absolutely no idea what was going on, and I was so glad I wasn’t [playing left tackle],” Josh said. “By the end of the year, I was there, and it was so simple.”

Panthers head coach RJ Haines knew with the football blood that pumped through Josh’s and Jeremy’s veins, it wouldn’t take long for them to find their footing on the field.

“When they came in, they were obviously very disciplined and very coachable,” Haines said. “If you didn’t play when you were younger but have the physical tools, you’re coachable, have the work ethic and discipline, those are the factors that come into play.”

By the time Josh was a sophomore, he was up with the varsity squad, where he and Jeremy spent two years forming one of the most solid left sides of any offensive line in the state and entertaining the team with intense tire flipping competitions at practice.

Both of them earned multiple all-conference nods in the Interstate Eight and Illinois Central Eight and were crowned Daily Journal All-Area selections last year, the same year Jeremy was also an all-state honorable mention. With Josh not playing his senior year, the two ended up finishing their high school careers together this past year.

“There’s nothing like playing next to your brother, especially when you’re dominating, and I feel like we dominated every game, individually and on double teams,” Josh said. “I don’t remember a time [when] someone got through our double teams.

“It’s cool to remember that I finished out the senior year with him, and we both went at the same time.”

Now, Josh is finishing his last bit of abbreviated time as a high school senior, preparing for life as a college student. But just because he won’t be on the field or in the hallways doesn’t mean he won’t be right there to watch his peers.

“Every game I can come back, I’m gonna be standing on the sidelines with [the team]. ... I want to be out there with them so bad,” Josh said. “Not to mention missing out on senior night, prom and all that; it will be really cool to be back with them.”