Recently, 'Prince' staff writer Austin Starkweather sat down with football's junior wide receiver Chisom Opara.
'Prince': What was it like to play three sports at Gilman High School?
Opara: At a place like Gilman it was great to play. We had just such a great tradition of having good athletic teams. We had great coaches, great facilities, and playing there, you play with a lot of great guys like [sophomore] Damien Davis and [sophomore] Ryan Boyle. I was also able to play against a lot of other good athletes like [junior] Owen Daly and [junior] Brad Dumont.The competition was a whole lot of fun. It's the kind of school that lets you play three sports in one year. Gilman was great because you could do pretty much anything you wanted to do.
P: What's your favorite memory from high school football?
CO: I think that our senior sesason, going 10-0 was probably our best time. I think high school football is one of the best times of a football player's career. You're with your friends, you feel like you're on top of the world, and going 10-0 was a great experience.
P: Do you ever see Daly, Davis, Dumont and Boyle around on campus and try to get them to play football?
CO: Oh yeah, for the longest time I've been on those guys. Owen and I used to have great battles because we were both receivers. We always played against each other and wanted to outdo each other. I remember our senior year when he tackled me and slammed me to the ground real hard and I've been wanting to get him back for that but I think he's too scared to go out for football.
P: What about you going out for lacrosse, playing defense, and getting in some good hits on those guys yourself?
CO: I wouldn't want to hurt them. They're some of the better players, so I don't think [lacrosse] coach [Bill] Tierney would be too happy if I took them out.
P: When did you first decide that you might want to play college football?
CO: Actually, I never really was too interested in playing college football. It wasn't something I had planned to do from day one, but when senior year came around and the recruiters started to show up, I started to realize that it was something I could do and something that I wanted to do, so right after my senior season, I realized that it wasn't time for me to stop playing. I also wanted to play baseball because that's another sport I love, but that didn't work out.
P: Was the relationship with your high school quarterback different from your relationship with David Splithoff?
CO: It's funny you should ask, since Ryan Boyle was my high school quarterback. He's very much like David Splithoff. We ran the option a lot in high school, he's a great athlete just like David. My relationship with David is very friendly, we get along real well. Both of them are good leaders, so it makes my job a lot easier.
P: What are the huddles like after the plays? A lot of arguments and finger pointing?
CO: Luckily, the way our team is, we just don't do any finger pointing and go on to the next play. This weekend, I got into a little scuffle against Columbia and got flagged for it. My teammates were there to tell me to shut up and keep my head in the game.
P: What sort of trash talking goes on between you and the cornerbacks?
CO: The whole game is pretty much just joking around, trying to get under their skin as much as you can. I say stuff, usually stupid stuff, and afterwards it's like 'what was I thinking?' Any time you can add that to a game and still play as well as you can, it just adds another level of competition to the game. I'm a big Shannon Sharpe fan — a guy who does that kind of stuff, so I'm just kind of learning.
P: Who wins the trash talking level of the competitions, you or the cornerbacks?
CO: Yeah, as a whole receiving corps, we hold our own. We don't usually put up with too much.
P: What was the preseason like?
CO: We came on [August] 24th, and as soon as we got back, we saw that everybody had been working very hard, they're all stronger and faster. Preseason was tough at times because of the heat, and you're here by yourself with no girls around. You're just here with 100 guys for two weeks and seeing the same guys all the time. We did grow closer as a team, though, so that was good.
P: What about the Princeton high school girls?
CO: That's the lacrosse team that takes care of that, so the high schoolers aren't really around too much for us.
P: What about the night before the Columbia game? Did you go out?
CO: There was a women's soccer game. We went to check them out. We went as a whole team and heckled a couple players on the other team and had a good time.
P: You know, I was there, too, and heard some people giving Columbia's Erica Woda a hard time.
CO: We had to let her know that we were there in full force. I feel sorry for her, she was probably crying that night.
P: Were you hoping that she would go back and complain to their cornerback, maybe giving you a leg up the next day?
CO: We didn't know what she was going to do, but she must have done something because they came out talking a lot of trash.
P: Do you think that Princeton has a chance at the Ivy title this year?
CO: I like to think so. Some of the programs we didn't think were going to play real well, but they are playing a lot of the teams real well, so I don't think that we have an easy game on the schedule.
P: What's your best memory from college football?
CO: The Yale football game last year was great. It was a complete spectrum of emotions. We came up here, thought we were going to lose late in the game, Marty Cheatham ('01) made that great run and we came out with a great win for the program.
P: What was your favorite road trip with the team?
CO: The road trips are always fun, but it's good to get away from school some, sometimes we've had the girls teams in the same hotels, so that's always interesting when you have all this free time on your hands and you have a bunch of girls in the room. Last spring in Japan was probably the best time, though. There was so much fun to have and so much trouble to get into.
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