Ike Opara: Advocate, Coach, Athlete

“Growing up… I always kinda remember being one of the few Black people who played the game of soccer. I knew there was something a bit strange with that.”

Soccer was always going to find Ike Opara. As a first-generation American born to Nigerian parents, his father encouraged him to pick up Africa’s favorite sport. However, he was often one of the only Black players on his team growing up in North Carolina.

He attributes this unfortunate reality to the pay-to-play structure in America, calling the sport a “luxury” compared to other countries. For many years, soccer has been reserved for those who could afford it, often shutting out people of color and the economically disadvantaged. While Opara has since worked to diminish the boundary of cost in American soccer, the point still stands that his success is despite the system rather than because of it.

Amidst his isolation as one of a handful of Black players, he did have a Black player as a role model growing up: DC United defender Eddie Pope.

“It’s funny because I was never a defender, I ended up becoming one, but I always loved the way he approached the game. When I made that switch… I remember attributes to his game that I tried to incorporate into mine.”

While his position changed over the years, Opara notes that his outsider status on soccer teams continued until he became a professional in 2010. How did he overcome this “strange” feeling of not fully belonging? “As I got older,” he says, “I just became more grounded in my own identity.”

Opara struggled with injuries over the course of his professional career. He had four season-ending injuries during his ten full seasons in MLS. The secret to his resilience? Treating every difficult moment as a challenge rather than as a catastrophe.

“I couldn’t even shower properly. I had to wrap my cast. I remember [thinking,] “oh, how can I be more efficient showering today? How can I be more efficient tomorrow?” I’d perfect all these things as a challenge.”

Despite the massive roadblocks throughout his career, Opara won MLS Defender of the Year twice. He attributes his success to his excellent soccer IQ as a center back. Other people, including the FIFA ratings group, had a different idea of what made him special: his pace and athleticism.

“I got labeled, especially being a Black athlete, [as] athletic. I rarely used my athleticism, especially [in] the back half of my career. It was all about reading the game, being a student of the game. For me, yes, having those…physical attributes are important for a center back, but I always think the number one attribute needed is IQ.”

In May 2020, Opara became more than just a soccer player. He became an advocate.

“I was in Minneapolis at the time. I lived two miles from where George Floyd was murdered. It kinda hit home for me, like, wanting to make a change in some way.”

Opara and other Black players looking for an opportunity to make an impact decided to band together. They created the Black Players Coalition of MLS (now known as Black Players for Change), a group whose original aim was to “address racial inequalities in MLS, fight racism in soccer, elevate Black voices and positively impact Black communities across the USA and Canada.”

As an experienced player in his tenth MLS season, Opara felt a natural pull to lead the new Coalition. He became an inaugural board member of the organization alongside players like Jeremy Ebobisse and Bill Hamid. For Opara, his visibility was an important attribute to gaining support for the organization:

“My credibility within the league was pretty high, on the field and off the field. I already knew I was gonna be looked at as one of the guys to take this and make it into something that was sustainable and actionable for our players. I wouldn’t say it was, like, a calling, but I was one of the guys that needed to step up and play a role. Especially when you’re making change, the more visible the players that you have are, the easier it is to make that difference. Me coming out is much different than a rookie. I wanted to take that burden.”

At the tail end of Opara’s playing career in 2021, Opara transitioned into an advisory role for the newly-renamed Black Players for Change. While transitioning into a different role in his advocacy, he also became a scout for Nashville SC. Scouting was an “escape” for the still-injured Opara, who initially worked pro bono before becoming a full-time scout. He used his position as a scout to continue making the sport more equitable:

“With my reports, I always tried to make it seem like you couldn’t figure out who the player was. I wanted someone, as they’re reading the report, to go, “alright,” as opposed to labeling with some of these key attributes such as ‘powerful’ or ‘pacey.’”

After a few months as a scout, Opara received a call from Sporting Kansas City II Head Coach Benny Feilhaber. He wanted to know if his former Kansas City teammate wanted to step into the world of coaching. Opara was not interested initially.

“He pretty much peer pressured me into taking the job [laughs.] I never wanted to coach when I was a player because there’s a lot of dynamics in the locker room, especially as a professional. There’s all these egos and different things you’re trying to balance. As a coach, I’d always think that’s extremely hard to try to manage.

They’re [SKC II players] way more hungry and way more willing to learn and not be so set in their ways. No one wants to finish their careers here on the second team. They wanna get to a higher place. If I was gonna coach, I couldn’t have been in a better situation to start.”

Opara is one of the few Black coaches in American men’s professional soccer. He’s quick to note that many qualified Black candidates are often passed over while he got to “skip the line” due to his connections and his positive reputation as a player. This speaks to a larger bias in the hiring process for coaches: Black coaches have to prove they’re enough before they’re even considered.

Well aware of the rarity of his position, Opara takes his coaching role seriously. He continues the racial equity work he started as an athlete, now from a new vantage point. “When I’m making a suggestion or a report or anything I write, I make sure that people see more than just the color of the player. I don’t want that potential bias to come in.”

He credits Marlow Campbell, North Carolina State titan and Opara’s first travel team coach, as a source of inspiration.

“I think about him quite actively in terms of what he meant for me. Not because of what he did for my game, but having someone that I could confide in in a different way. I probably still always would have played soccer, but having that security blanket…was different.”

Following his former coach’s example, Opara wants to be that security blanket for his players of color now. It’s clear that his past as an athlete and as an advocate has uniquely qualified him for that role. The “credibility” he earned in the league wasn’t just because he was an award-winning defender. It’s because of his emotional intelligence and passion for improving the game. These attributes are also key to being a great coach. “You’re not doing it for gain. You just do it because you’re a good person.”