This Pro Football Player Plays in Japan and Canada (at the same time) 🤯

For our very first episode in English, we're honored to welcome Les Maruo, linebacker for the Edmonton Elks (CFL) and Panasonic Impulse (X-League), as our guest.

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Intro: 00:00:00

Les’ experience playing in the 2025 Rice Bowl: 00:03:47

The difference between club teams and company teams in Japanese pro football: 00:09:12

Cheerleaders for Panasonic and Futjitsu are also company employees during the day time: 00:12:00

Why Panasonic has a very strict social media policy: 00:13:15

The Panasonic football facilities: 00:16:19

How Les discovered American football: 00:17:50

Moving from Shizuoka, Japan to Kansas, USA: 00:20:29

The difference between youth baseball in the US vs. in Japan: 00:23:45

The reality of a 3 sport athlete in High School: 00:24:52

Playing in both the X League and the CFL in the same year: 00:26:44

The importance of lifting heavy in-season: 00:30:22

How his kinesiology degree helps him in his football career: 00:32:42

How he met his Olympian girlfriend: 00:36:37

How Leo ended up dating a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader: 00:42:09

Les’ offseason preparation: 00:45:22

Implementing track athlete style workouts to his football preparation: 00:46:52

When did he become good at football: 00:48:59

Why he chose to pursue College Football rather than College Baseball: 00:50:35

His JUCO recruiting process: 00:52:43

Why he chose Hutchinson Community College: 00:54:27

Why he chose UTSA (NCAA Group of 5) after his JUCO career: 00:57:07

Dealing with compartment syndrome during his first NCAA season: 00:59:24

How he never lost faith that he’d be able to play football again: 01:02:17

His junior and senior years at UTSA: 01:04:29

His Pro Day and pro football tryouts: 01:07:22

His transition to life without football: 01:07:50

How he got his shot at playing pro football in Japan: 01:12:20

Transitioning back to his home country after so many years: 01:15:21

Summary of the episode’s exclusive section reserved for our Patreoners: 01:19:20

How Les became a CFL global player: 01:20:39

His signature and championship with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers: 01:29:50

His interest in eventually playing in Europe: 01:30:37

The main difference between the X League and the ELF: 01:32:20

What did we think of the talent level of Japanese American football: 01:34:48

Which pro football league is truly the 3rd best level in the world between the X League, the ELF, and the LFA: 01:37:06

Outro: 01:42:17

In this episode of Sans Stress, we share our views on the world as young athletes, with zero filter, zero pressure. Just real talk.#sansstress #podcast