Canzano: College football kicks off with a big hit
My Week 0 reactions, thoughts, and takeaways.
My pal Mike Rich is a decorated Hollywood screenwriter. He’s written a line of incredible sports movies, including the scripts for Finding Forrester, The Rookie, Miracle, and Secretariat.
Rich is just the guy for this Kansei Matsuzawa story.
Matsuzawa was living in Japan at 20 and working as a waiter in a steakhouse when he took a vacation to the US and saw an NFL game. He went back home, got on YouTube to study Seahawks’ place kicker Jason Myers, then went to a nearby park, and taught himself how to kick field goals.
Matsuzawa had almost no money.
He spoke little English.
He took videos of himself kicking and sent them to more than 50 colleges. Finally, a community college in Ohio (Hocking College) gave him a shot. He kicked there, then transferred to Hawaii. On Saturday, in the season-opening game, Matsuzawa kicked a game-winning field goal to beat Stanford, 23-20.
It’s a fun story. Just what we needed in Week 0. Matsuzawa kicked four field goals to beat the Cardinal. He’ll never pay for a drink on the islands again. Also, it’s Exhibit A that you can jump on YouTube and learn just about anything.
My reactions, thoughts, and takeaways from Week 0…