What happened to Ike Opara?
It’s a question that has remained unanswered for five years.
Before the 2019 season, Minnesota United traded for Opara, one of MLS’s best center backs; it was part of a veteran roster overhaul lined up to the opening of Allianz Field. Opara went on to win his second MLS defender of the year award that season, helping lead the Loons first to respectability, then the U.S. Open Cup final and their first MLS Cup Playoffs appearance.
Opara then played the opening two games of the 2020 season, but didn’t return after the pandemic pause. It wasn’t until August 2021 that MNUFC used its one buyout on Opara.
Opara’s history with concussions was part of the reasoning, but few details emerged at that time. A short statement from the club effectively served as an unceremonious end to Opara’s sidelined-to-star-to-sidelined 11-year career with three MLS teams, the San Jose Earthquakes, Sporting Kansas City and MNUFC.
Opara returned to St. Paul on June 1 and was honored at halftime of the Loons’ home victory over Sporting. It wasn’t a day he foresaw when he retired at age 31.
“I was like, ‘I don’t know if I’ll see 35,’ ” Opara revealed in an interview with the Pioneer Press. “That’s how terrible I felt.”
Opara, now 35, came to Minnesota with a history of concussions, dealing with symptoms and trying to limit another head injury, including the use of headgear.
While the fallout from concussions led to the end of his playing days, “it was so much deeper than that,” he said. Some other factors included his unsteady mental health and his wife’s own health issues.
Opara still isn’t ready to tell his whole story. He said he struggles with how to share it properly. But he was willing to share some of what he was going through.
“It’s a story for another day because it’s hours on hours on hours,” Opara said. “It was like I was here today and gone tomorrow. (He laughed.) I’m sure it looked that way, but to me, it didn’t feel that way. It was truly — I was fighting for my life in so many aspects.
“But I’ll say … there were days that I thought I was going to be dead, you know, which is a scary fact, a scary thought to even — well, now (that) I’m over it,” he continued. “It is scary to even think about it. It took a while to get over those thoughts.”
Concussion became consistent. “It was really the reoccurring symptoms, and truthfully, I never really didn’t have any,” Opara said on June 7. “It just kept progressively getting worse and worse and worse. And, I mean, I’ve got stories from games and things like that.”
Soon after Opara arrived in Minnesota in 2019, he sat down the Pioneer Press for a longer interview at the National Sports Center in Blaine. His concussion history in Kansas City was a topic.
“I remember the time that we spoke,” Opara said. “I think you did a write up on me about the concussions and my advocacy and education with that. And a part of me felt kind of dirty when I did it, because that morning in the (training) session, I felt like I sustained another one. And I was sitting there talking to you about (the topic) two hours later.”
Opara said he was just trying to plug through as a professional athlete.
“It took a moment for me to forgive myself because I played through things that I shouldn’t have been doing,” Opara said. “I put my own life at risk, and I’ve looked at it for what reason did I do that? To chase an individual award? Or a team award? Nothing like that in the grand scheme of things is important.”
Opara sought help with different specialists and health clinics but nothing seemed to work. He said he got lucky when he found an institute that helped put him on the road to recovery.
“I’m more healthy today than I’ve ever been — 180 (degrees),” Opara said. “Super grateful.”
The shoutout to Opara’s contribution to MNUFC on July 1 came with his wife, Erin, and their young son by his side.
“I look at him like, ‘Man, what could not have been,’ I guess,” Opara said. “It always gives you perspective and keeps you grounded.”
Opara is now an assistant coach with Sporting Kansas City II, its MLS NEXT Pro developmental team. When he was a player, Opara said he had no desire to go into coaching, but former SKC teammate and current SKC II head coach Benny Feilhaber talked Opara into joining his staff a few years ago.
Opara enjoys working with players at that level because they are focused on improvement. He isn’t too keen on climbing the coaching ladder because he doesn’t want to deal with the egos and money matters that can cloud matters at the MLS level.
Opara said he has also been working with the MLS Players’ Association on concussion advocacy and prevention.
“How many players there are in MLS that have issues and are still on the field playing is alarming,” Opara said. “Trying to do my best to help guide them. At the end of the day, I understand, sadly, why they keep pushing. I’m trying to help them understand the bigger picture.”
When Opara returned to Minnesota earlier this month, he caught up with a handful of former teammates and players he respected on the other side of the pitch. He said he connected with his former center back partner Michael Boxall, goalkeeper Dayne St. Clair, midfielder Robin Lod as well as goalie Clint Irwin and mid Wil Trapp.
“It was a full circle moment (on the field) of wrapping a wild journey of a career and personally from when I started playing, when I was a little boy,” Opara said. “So, to be able to be honored and recognized was quite special.”
Opara looked back fondly on his year-plus in Minnesota. He recalled the inaugural game at Allianz Field, a wild 3-3 draw with New York City in April; the Loons’ 2-0 win at Los Angeles FC that September (a game in which Opara wore the captain’s armband), and the home MLS Cup Playoffs loss to Los Angeles Galaxy in October.
But it was the 2-1 loss to Atlanta in the U.S Open Cup final which he first brought up. He drilled down to how Atlanta went down to 10 men with Leandro Gonzalez Pirez’s red card in the 74th minute.
“We were really a play away from making it to extra time,” Opara remembered. “And I have no doubt, we would have gotten the win with them down the man.”
Opara said it’s hard to compare his two MLS defender of the year awards: with KC in 2017 and Minnesota in 2019.
“Coming to Minnesota, which was a brand project as a whole, even though it was Year 3, and the lack of defensive strength that they had the first two years. It was, let’s try to build this thing principle-wise: create good habits, be a leader, be vocal, have everyone trust in me, and also give that trust and respect to others,” Opara remembered. “That give and take of a relationship as a unit. So it was like starting from scratch with Minnesota, which was completely different than Sporting.”
While Opara’s tenure in Minnesota was severed too short, he never felt animosity from MNUFC supporters.
“I think they appreciated the work that I put in,” he said. “Obviously, (it was) for just barely over a season. But I think what I kind of embodied with that city, just how I go about my business on the field, how I am off the field. … Despite some up-and-down times that I had with my time in Minnesota, the fans never would have an issue. They’re always behind me. I always felt love.”
