Jun 16, 2026
When Kansei Matsuzawa visited the U.S. from his native Japan and attended an NFL game between the then-Oakland Raiders and the Los Angeles Rams in 2018, he had no idea that in eight years he’d find his way to the NFL as the league’s first-ever Japanese-born player.
In April, Matsuzawa signed as an undrafted free agent with the now-Las Vegas Raiders, completing a seemingly improbable journey from Japan to the National Football League.
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In fact, though Matsuzawa decided during that 2018 game that he wanted to play in the NFL, according to NBC News, the 19-year-old hadn’t ever set foot on the gridiron.
His lack of experience at an age when most American hopefuls enter college with their eyes set on the NFL, however, didn’t detour him. Instead, he set his sights on the position he felt he could master the quickest: kicker.
Rather than rushing to the nearest football field, Matsuzawa took to YouTube, learning to kick by watching videos of American players and then practicing himself in a local schoolyard.
“I believe [in] myself,” he told NBC News. “I think that’s the only way to become something great.”
The journey from Japan to the NFL
Matsuzawa isn’t the first pro athlete to learn their craft on YouTube. Canadian golfer Sudarshan Yellamaraju studied the sport’s legends on YouTube to hone his game before landing on the PGA Tour.
For Matsuzawa, however, YouTube was just the start. After practicing what he learned, he begged a team in Japan’s X League to let him work for them, offering services from “doing filming, like wiping the toilet, or whatever you guys wanted” in exchange to access to their field.
They agreed and, from there, Matsuzawa learned from coaches and players and eventually put together a sizzle reel that he sent to U.S. colleges through social media.
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Ohio’s Hocking College accepted him and, from there, his experience landed him at the University of Hawaii, where a stellar 2025 season — including completing 27 of 29 field goals — earned him the nickname “The Tokyo Toe,” as well as the attention of the NFL’s Raiders.
The Honolulu Star-Advertiser reports that Matsuzawa, now 27, will rake in $885,000 — the minimum first-year NFL salary — if he makes the team. That’s far from guaranteed, though the kicker has reportedly earned a new nickname among his Raider colleagues: Special K.
Moneywise reached out to the Raiders and the NFL Player’s Association for comment about Matsuzawa and didn’t hear back.
But regardless of whether he makes the Raiders roster or not, Matsuzawa’s journey to the NFL highlights a key lesson for cashing in on your self-taught skills.
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The key to self-taught success
A 2026 report from LinkedIn noted that “employers are increasingly prioritizing skills over degrees, job titles or linear career paths,” while an Express Employment Professionals-Harris Poll survey from February echoed similar sentiments, noting almost two-thirds of hiring managers “believe skills learned through informal online platforms are credible.”
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It’s one thing, however, to possess the skills, but Matsuzawa’s example shows that talent isn’t enough. The key to transitioning those skills into a paycheck is resilience and finding ways to go the extra mile to let potential employers know that you’ve got the tools for the job.
For Matsuzawa, that meant spending countless hours studying YouTube videos and offering to scrub toilets in return for access to football facilities, tossing social media Hail Marys to get the attention of U.S. schools and, finally, climbing the college ranks to get noticed by the NFL.
For U.S. job seekers, Bob Funk Jr. — CEO, President and Chairman of Express Employment International — cautions that while “self‑learning is opening doors for workers everywhere,” it also “raises the bar” for those same seekers “to demonstrate their abilities right away.”
Once you’ve identified your skillset, one option is to send letters of interest to companies for which you’d like to work. In the same way Matsuzawa reached out to colleges via social media, letters of interest allow you to make a connection with a potential employer even if they aren’t actively hiring, showing initiative while also filling them in on your background and skillset — all great ways to get a leg up on the competition when a job opens.
Recruitment and consulting company Freshminds also suggests building “something that shows your value and these skills” — be it a written report digging deeper into your desired field, or a dashboard analysing data in said field — and publishing it online for potential employers to see.
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And international staffing company Robert Half recommends trying a “value validation project,” which is essentially “a deliverable you create that can help you communicate to a hiring manager how you could specifically provide value to an organization if you were hired.”
That, Robert Half notes, involves researching the company where you hope to work — including earnings reports and other public documents, and even interviews with current employees and/or customers — and then identifying ways that you would approach a role in the company and strategies you’d employ to further boost the company’s goals.
After that, “choose the most engaging way to present your project,” be it a website or another creative presentation, and share it with the hiring manager or recruiter.
“In reality, it’s a small investment,” Robert Half added. “A few hours of unpaid work could unlock the door to a rewarding, long-term career.”
And it sure beats offering to clean the company’s toilets.
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Mike Crisolago is a Sr. Staff Reporter at Moneywise with nearly 20 years of experience working as a journalist, editor, content strategist and podcast host. He specializes in personal finance writing related to the 50-plus demographic and retirement, as well as politics and lifestyle content.
