A few years back we had an exchange student from Germany who told everybody that he wanted to play football. Like everyone else, I assumed that he was thinking of soccer, but on the first day of practice he showed up with his own receiver's gloves, mouthpiece, and cleats. He was a stud. Poor guy was an exchange student to a team that was awful, but he was our best player. He returned the opening kickoff of the season for a TD. He had grown up playing football, and he was an excellent WR. I didn't have a QB who could throw, so he was our pre-Frost equivalent of a Duck-R. He finished the year as our leading rusher, leading receiver, and leading tackler as he played Safety on defense: he'd never played defense before. He projected somewhere between NAIA and D2 as a football player, but he went home after his year with us and played some more football in Germany.
Fwiw, he'd been exceptionally well coached.