A crooked love story: Sacramento’s Cameron Iwasa retires as Republic fan favorite

It would be easier, for the sake of narrative, if we could simply say Cameron Iwasa retires Saturday from the team and sport he always loved.

It’s a little more complicated than that.

That’s also the interesting part.

Iwasa will retire as Sacramento Republic’s all-time leading goal scorer Saturday after the Quails take on San Diego. And yes, this is something of a love story. Iwasa almost always sticks around after games to sign autographs for fans; they, in turn, will more than likely sing a song they’ve written about him. They only do that for Iwasa. The 28-year-old forward has scored 57 goals for Sacramento, the second-most in league history scored by a player for one team.

But Iwasa wasn’t always destined to be a star player for his childhood favorite team. For starters, the team didn’t exist until his senior year of college at UC Irvine. And he wasn’t exactly a star right off the bat for Republic, scoring just one goal in 2015, his first of six seasons with the club.

Iwasa has always been loved by the fans, perhaps a bit more than other players, because of his Sacramento roots. He starred at Jesuit High School in 2010-11. He knows what a professional soccer team would have meant to him, back in the day. So yeah, he’ll sign that scarf or take a picture with you for Instagram.

“I think Sacramento has always felt like kind of the little brother city in California,” Iwasa said. “And because of that, I think people are extra passionate and protective of what they have that is theirs.”

Now, he’s Sacramento through and through. But he had plenty of chances to go elsewhere. The best chance came in 2017, when Iwasa joined the Kansas City MLS team. For a few weeks before the season started, he had the starting forward job sewn up. Then he suffered a hamstring injury and ended up as a substitute on Kansas City’s USL team.

MLS never called again, but it’s not a missed opportunity that’s going to keep Iwasa up at night.

“It’s tough to break in at my position, I think because typically that’s a position that they’re gonna go spend big money,” he said. “You look around MLS, most of the highest-paid guys in the league play my position. And so, unless you’re homegrown kid, oftentimes it’s going to be young homegrown guys and it’s going to be expensive guys from South America, Europe, whatever. And, you know, I had my shot.”

A missed shot is the opposite of what Iwasa is known for.

Some forwards are known for their ability to weave through several defenders and get off a shot in a narrow window. Others are garbage men, picking up deflected balls and dumping them in the net.

Iwasa is something different, especially when the ball is in the penalty box. He might notice a defender overpursuing and tap the ball a few feet over to get a clear shot. He might keep possession against a pair of defenders. He will almost certainly do something dangerous for the other team to defend.

“He just has a physicality,” said coach Mark Briggs. “... He anticipates balls in the box, which is why he scored so many goals as he has, I think his anticipation, his reading of the game in the final third, is a high level.

“As a forward, you always have to anticipate mistakes, anticipate the defender making an error, anticipate the defender being in the wrong spot, and I think that’s what he does best.”

Iwasa didn’t flash most of those skills until after his stint with Kansas City. But even that wasn’t a slam-dunk return to Sacramento. As a free agent in 2018, Iwasa could have sought out a party-centric city like Nashville or chased a high-dollar contract. But he had a girlfriend in Sacramento and things were serious. It was time to come back.

Iwasa says he had something to prove when he rejoined the Republic. Point taken: He scored 17 goals in both 2018 and 2019. The fans came up with a song for Iwasa, sung to the tune of “I’m Gonna Be” by The Proclaimers:

I would walk 500 miles

And I would walk 500 more

Just to be the fan who walked a thousand miles

To see Cam score a goal

Iwasa! (Iwasa)

Iwasa! (Iwasa)

He grins when asked about the song. It’s not the least-annoying ditty, but “hey, anytime you can get a song that’s specifically for you, you can’t really complain.”

Republic fans will enjoy singing it, maybe a few times if Iwasa nabs some goals Saturday.

It’s more than “he’s from here” for the fans. Republic has other local players, and they often get a bit more applause than other guys on the roster. Iwasa has a different connection. Last Tuesday at Folsom State Prison for a pickup game between incarcerated men and Sacramento Republic staffers, the inmates stopped the pregame introductions to congratulate Iwasa on his retirement. Iwasa has watched games in the prison a half-dozen times and knows the guys. Shamrock, an inmate who’s been there most of the times, said some nice words and the men gave Iwasa a round of applause.

“I think I think the thing that stands out the most is how appreciative those guys are of something that takes so little effort from us,” Iwasa said.

It’s those connections that Iwasa hopes will help after his soccer retirement, when he looks for a day job. He has a degree in business economics, which he figures qualifies him to do basically anything. While he waits to land work, Iwasa says he just got the battery changed in his golf cart. He wore a “Caddyshack” hat after a recent Sacramento Republic practice. He’ll be out in the fairways if you’re looking for him.

We know this much: He’s staying in Sacramento. That girlfriend that brought him back from Kansas City? That’s Bailey O’Brien, a St. Francis High School graduate. They’re getting married Dec. 4. She works as a physical therapist. Sure, they knew each other in high school, but even that isn’t a straight line. Back in high school, they were interested in each other’s best friends. Fortunately for the Quails, the couple figured it out in time to bring Iwasa back to Sacramento for his prime years.

Briggs, his coach for one more game, loves the fan support his team gets. Yes, the fans support Iwasa. Briggs sees it as repayment for all of Iwasa’s efforts.

“He takes pride in representing where he was born and where he grew up,” Briggs said. “And the fact that he has his family and friends are here supporting him. He takes pride in that and I think that’s something special. Not everybody gets the opportunity to represent their hometown team.”

This story was originally published October 29, 2021 at 5:00 AM with the headline "A crooked love story: Sacramento’s Cameron Iwasa retires as Republic fan favorite."