Raiders coaches, teammates have new nickname for Kansei Matsuzawa

By now a lot of people know the story of Kansei Matsuzawa. He has become well known for his story as a Japanese kid who picked up a football for the first time at the age of 19 and taught himself how to kick. He would go on to become a prolific kicker at the University of Hawaii, earning the nickname “The Tokyo Toe”.

Well, that nickname seems like it would be pretty awkward for his teammates and coaches to refer to him. And neither does his actual name. So, they’ve come up with another one — Special K.

Raiders special teams coordinator, Greg DeCamillis was asked about Matsuzawa on Wednesday and each time he mentioned the rookie, he referred to him by the nickname.

“Matt [Gay] has really helped Special K quite a bit,” said DeCamillis. “He’s done a good job of getting him squared away with some of his technique and some of that which is great for an older guy to be able to do especially when you’re competing for the job. The competition’s been good. Hopefully we can get Matt back on the same plane that he was when I had him in LA. And I think Special K’s gonna be really good too down the road. Should be a hell of a competition.”

The obvious place to go to find out where such a nickname may have originated is Raiders big personalty punter AJ Cole. So I asked him.

“You can’t just meet a guy and right off the bat start calling him The Tokyo Toe. It’s like ‘Hey, good morning, the Tokyo Toe.’ It doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue,” said Cole. “I wasn’t 100% sure of the pronunciation, so I was either saying it really quickly or kind of mumbling through it. . . And then at some points when he was at a distance and I had to say it loud, we were just calling him K. Now I feel really comfortable with the pronunciation, but, yeah, I think that Special K…it’s not quite as good as ‘The Tokyo Toe’ — the alliteration on that’s pretty unbelievable, but Special K is a good backup nickname.”

For the most part, Matsuzawa is just super excited to be in Las Vegas. It was at a Raiders game in 2018 that he was inspired to try his foot at kicking. And now he’s living his dream.

But Matsuzawa isn’t just a fun story. He earned his place in this competition.

“It’s hard to say that I’ve ever had somebody like him,” DeCamillis added, noting Matsuzawa being self taught.

“This guy did a great job in college. He had film to watch. It wasn’t like he just came off the street and he’s one of those tryout guys who never kicked. He had great film in college to watch. He’s got a heck of a story and hopefully he’s able to compete and we get the best guy.”

The familiarity with DeCamillis and experience as an NFL kickers gives Gay an advantage at this point. But Special K’s story makes him the kind of player you root for to find his way onto the roster. Whether that’s right away or, as DeCamillis said “down the road.”