Hawaii's YouTube kicker dubbed the 'Tokyo Toe' used grit to become an AP All-American with NFL hopes

HONOLULU (AP) — Kansei Matsuzawa became an instant star this year, with game-tying and game-winning field goals in a 23-20 victory win over Stanford and a singular backstory about teaching himself to kick on YouTube.

The Japan-born Matsuzawa’s near-perfect performance during the rest of Hawaii’s 8-4 season was even more impressive.

He made 25 consecutive field goals, tying a 43-year-old Football Bowl Subdivision record and earning first-team status as an Associated Press All-American as one the best players in the country. He was a finalist for the Lou Groza award given to the nation's top place-kicker.

“In every moment, I always choose win. Even if I want to go home, just choose when to stay on campus and do something extra," Matsuzawa said before his final game this week. "And that was the mindset I have this year, and because of that now I get recognition from (the) entire country and also back home in Japan.”

Dubbed the “Tokyo Toe” by teammates, he graduated this month and will take the field for the Rainbow Warriors for the last time in Wednesday's Hawaii Bowl against California.

He has a chance of playing in the National Football League just six years after he attending his first football game. Back then, he didn't understand the rules and knew just one player's name: Tom Brady.

Matsuzawa's unlikely path to college football dates to 2019. The high school soccer player failed annual college entrance exams in Japan two years in a row and didn't know what he wanted to do with his life. He was 20 years old and depressed.

“I had nothing. I lost my purpose of my life,” Matsuzawa said in an interview.

His father gave him a ticket to travel to the U.S. and see a world outside Japan. He flew to California with no agenda other than to watch an NFL game, a sport he had some affinity for because his father was a fan and they had watched Super Bowls together.

He didn't fully understand what he saw on the field at Oakland Coliseum. But the energy and fan enthusiasm at the stadium was different from what he had experienced in Japanese sports. Once back home, he decided he would return to the U.S., become a kicker and play in the NFL.

American football is a obscure sport in Japan, ranking below baseball, soccer, sumo, golf, skating and other pastimes in popularity. Matsuzawa wanted to learn from the best, an NFL player, but there weren't any in Japan. So he imitated kickers on YouTube, particularly Jason Myers of the Seattle Seahawks. He liked Myers' style, tempo and rhythm. He told his family and a few friends but otherwise kept his plans a secret to avoid skeptics.

There are only a few football fields with goal posts in Japan, but one was an hour's commute from his house. He begged its owners, the Fujitsu Frontiers of a Japanese industrial league, to let him practice there in exchange for running team errands.

After two years of practicing and saving money from a steakhouse job, he sent video clips of himself kicking to U.S. junior college teams. Hocking College in tiny Nelsonville, Ohio, gave him a chance. He says he knew so little English he barely spoke the first three months. He's not sure anyone there had ever seen a Japanese person before.

The culture shock didn't deter him.

“Nothing beats me," he said with a smile.

He eventually made it on a list of top kicking prospects. Hawaii’s coordinator for special teams noticed Matsuzawa's leg strength and power, form and technique. It was Matsuzawa's resilience and overcoming of adversity that prompted Thomas Sheffield to recruit him.

“That’s what it’s going to take to be successful,” Sheffield said.

Matsuzawa was a walk-on, but got a scholarship a year ago and sobbed as his coach told him the good news. He was thinking of his parents, he says, who downsized their home to save money and help cover his costs, and of his grandparents, who paid his Hawaii tuition.

Adjusting to the intensity of FBS play took time. Sheffield left him off the travel roster for a Vanderbilt game his first year but Matsuzawa picked himself up. He focused on doing small things right every day and said he gradually earned the respect of his teammates and coaches.

“It goes back to the grit and him finding a way to put him in a situation to fulfill his dreams,” Sheffield said.

Matsuzawa worked with a sports psychologist twice a week this season, which he said helped. Last season, when he was 12 for 16 on field goal attempts, he set his mind on results like kicking farther and boosting his statistics. This year, he's focused on process, on kicking footballs and staying positive.

“Luckily my job is simple, making field goal, and that’s what I want to do,” Matsuzawa said. “Just one at a time. Go out there, kick.”

Matsuzawa credits his special teams unit for his achievements and said he will treasure their connection for the rest of his life. His holder, Caleb Freeman, said he would do anything for Matsuzawa's success.

“It’s real easy for the position he’s in to kind of take the spotlight and run with it," Freeman said. "But ever since the Stanford game, (when) he made the game-winning field goal, he has always just shined the light on everyone else.”

The NFL has players of Japanese ancestry, like Commanders quarterback Jayden Daniels whose great-grandmother is Japanese. Historically a dozen players have listed a birthplace in Japan, according to Elias Sports Bureau, but their backgrounds indicate they were mostly born to parents serving overseas in the U.S. military.

Hawaii coach Timmy Chang is confident Hawaii and Japan will be rooting for him.

“I think he’s going to do well,” Chang said, "if he continues his mindset and the track in which he’s at and all the things that made him who he is.”

Hawaii place kicker Kansei Matsuzawa, of Japan, poses for a portrait at Clarence T.C. Ching Athletics Complex, Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2025, in Honolulu. (AP Photo/Mengshin Lin)

Hawaii head coach Timmy Chang smiles during an interview, Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2025, in Honolulu. (AP Photo/Mengshin Lin)

Hawaii place kicker Kansei Matsuzawa, of Japan, kicks a field goal during an NCAA college football practice, Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2025, in Honolulu. (AP Photo/Mengshin Lin)

Hawaii place kicker Kansei Matsuzawa, of Japan, poses for a portrait at Clarence T.C. Ching Athletics Complex, Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2025, in Honolulu. (AP Photo/Mengshin Lin)

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — The Kansas City Chiefs announced Monday they will relocate across the Kansas-Missouri border in a new domed stadium that will be ready by the 2031 season.

The move comes after a Kansas legislative committee approved a bonding package to support the move earlier in the day.

The Chiefs have played at Arrowhead Stadium on the Missouri side of Kansas City since 1972. Kansas City (Mo) Mayor Quinton Lucas and city officials planned to address the media later Monday.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas lawmakers approved a proposal Monday to help pay for a new stadium for the Kansas City Chiefs, which is expected to lure one of the NFL's iconic franchises across the state line from Missouri and replace popular but aging Arrowhead Stadium.

The Legislative Coordinating Council, which includes the state's top lawmakers, voted unanimously inside a packed room at the state capitol to allow for STAR bonds to be issued to cover up to 70% of the cost of a stadium and accompanying district. The bonds would be paid off with state sales and liquor tax revenues generated in a defined area around it.

The council meeting was attended by Chiefs owner Clark Hunt and team president Mark Donovan, along with other officials. They are expected to announce their intention to move later Monday from their longtime home in Kansas City, Missouri.

Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly has called a news conference for 3 p.m. local time “to present a major economic development announcement for the State of Kansas and the Kansas City Region.” She will be joined by legislators and Kansas City-area representatives.

The most likely landing place for the Chiefs is Kansas City, Kansas, near the Kansas Speedway and a retail and entertainment district known as The Legends. The area is also home to Children's Mercy Park, the home of MLS club Sporting Kansas City.

The move by the Chiefs would be a massive blow to Missouri lawmakers and Gov. Mike Kehoe, who had been working on their own package to prevent a second NFL franchise in a decade from leaving their borders. The Rams left St. Louis for Los Angeles in part due to their inability to secure funding to help replace The Dome at America’s Center.

Kehoe had backed a special legislative session in June to authorize bonds covering up to 50% of the cost of new or renovated stadiums, plus up to $50 million of tax credits for each stadium and unspecified aid from local governments.

Quinton Lucas, the mayor of Kansas City, Missouri, has been working to keep both the Chiefs and Kansas City Royals on the Missouri side of the state line. He has called a news conference for later Monday regarding “sports team developments.”

The Chiefs originally planned an $800 million renovation of Arrowhead Stadium in a joint effort with the Royals, who are similarly planning to build a new facility to replace Kauffman Stadium. The facilities sit a couple of hundred yards across the parking lot from each other, and both teams have leases with Jackson County, Missouri, that expire in January 2031.

Last year, Jackson County voters soundly defeated a local sales tax extension which would have helped to pay for those renovations to the football stadium while helping to fund a new ballpark for the Royals in downtown Kansas City, Missouri.

The Royals were not discussed by Kansas lawmakers Monday, but momentum appears to be building behind their own move across the state line. An affiliate of the club already has purchased the mortgage on a tract of land in Overland Park, Kansas.

Hunt has long said his preference was to renovate Arrowhead Stadium, which was beloved by his father and team founder, the late Lamar Hunt. It is considered one of the jewels of the NFL, alongside Lambeau Field in Green Bay, and is revered for its tailgating scene and home-field advantage; it currently holds the Guinness World Record for the loudest stadium roar.

This summer, Arrowhead Stadium will host six World Cup matches, including matches in the Round of 32 and quarterfinals.

Lamar Hunt established the Chiefs on August 14, 1959. The team was originally based in Dallas and known as the Texans, but Hunt was convinced by then-Kansas City Mayor H. Roe Bartle to relocate the team to Missouri with promises of tripling the team's season-ticket sales and expanding the seating capacity of Municipal Stadium.

In 1972, the team moved into Arrowhead Stadium at the Truman Sports Complex just east of downtown Kansas City.

The stadium has undergone numerous renovations through the years, allowing it to stay relevant in a changing sports landscape. But there has been little economic development around the stadium, the facility itself is starting to show wear and tear, and there is a limit to the number of luxury suites and amenities that the franchise can utilize to help drive revenue.

While the Hunt family has long loved Arrowhead Stadium, it has warmed in recent years to the idea of a replacement.

Not only would it solve many of the shortcomings of the Chiefs' longtime home, a new facility with a fixed or retractable roof would allow them to use it year-round. That would mean the potential for hosting more concerts and events, college football bowl games, the Final Four and perhaps one of Lamar Hunt's long-held dreams: a Super Bowl.

Hanna reported from Topeka. Skretta reported from Kansas City, Missouri.

AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl

Kansas Senate President Ty Masterson, R-Andover, confers with members of the Legislature's staff before a meeting of legislative leaders to review a proposal for issuing bonds to help the Kansas City Chiefs build a new stadium on the Kansas side of the Kansas City metropolitan area, Monday, Dec. 22, 2025, at the Statehouse in Topeka, Kan. (AP Photo/John Hanna)

Kansas City Chiefs Chairman and CEO Clark Hunt watches the start of a meeting of legislative leaders who had the power to decide whether the state issues bonds to help the Chiefs finance a new stadium on the Kansas side of the Kansas City metropolitan area, Monday, Dec. 22, 2025, at the Statehouse in Topeka, Kan. (AP Photo/John Hanna)