Matt Leo can pinpoint the moment that he no longer wanted to be a plumber and instead wanted to chase his American Football dream.
He was working on the River Torrens Footbridge and a chat with a co-worker convinced him that the NFL was calling.
"That bridge over the Torrens was my last work site," Leo said on the latest episode of Sporting News Australia's Remember The Name podcast.
"The reason why I'm here today, one guy, Matthew, who was my tradesmen at the time because I was a fourth year.
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"We were both crawling through a small tiny duct and putting up suspended drainage and I remember hitting my head on this brass bracket.
"I looked at him and went 'why am I doing this, I'm too big to be crawling through this and plumbing'."
Earlier in his apprenticeship, Leo remembers watching a Super Bowl clash during his lunch break and becoming enamoured with American Football.
The smoko that he took on one of his first days as a plumber would end up shaping the rest of his life.
"I was sitting there, it was my first ever trade school for my construction plumbing," Leo said.
"I remember the confetti coming down after the [Super Bowl] game, I was in awe, I had never seen anything like it.
"The stadium was huge, the fan base was massive and watching the players celebrate after the Super Bowl was like, 'wow, this is literally a Hollywood movie'.
"It was a dream, it was an absolute dream."
Since then, Leo has made the most of many opportunities in America, including three years playing as a Defensive Tackle for Iowa State.
Some of the memories he has from his time there are the types of experiences most athletes dream of.
"One time that really hit me, when I was playing at Iowa State, we played Texas at their stadium," Leo said.
"If I'm correct, it was 105,000 people that day at that game, it was a night time game and the lights were coming down on me.
"I was thinking, this is like a Grand Final AFL match, I was shocked to the point where it almost gave me butterflies.
"That's when it really hit me how fortunate I was to be there."
Leo has now been selected by the Philadelphia Eagles as part of the NFL's International Player Pathway program.
He will become the third Australian on the Eagles roster alongside Jordan Mailata and Cameron Johnston.
One man that Leo credits for part of his success is Paul Manera.
Manera is the Director of Bring It On Sports, and was crucial in developing Leo into an American Football athlete.
"When we went down to Adelaide [for one of our camps], Matt turned up because he wanted to come over and talk to me about going to America and playing," Manera told the Remember The Name podcast.
"In the session, we taught him some basic fundamental skills to see how well he could move.
"I don't even think he had any pads or equipment.
"We just got him involved and we wanted to see how well he could move."
Eventually, Manera held a 'mini-combine' for Leo so they could film it and send it to recruiters in the US.
"He performed quite well," Manera said.
"He ran about 4.8 (seconds) in the 40.
"Eventually, when he got everything in order, we put together a highlight video of him and I sent that over to Western Arizona Community College.
"Coach Minnick eventually got him to enrol in school and eventually he got a scholarship at Western Arizona."
And the rest as they say, is history.
To listen to the entire podcast with Matt Leo and Paul Manera, the episode is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or search "Remember The Name" on your favourite podcast platform.
Alternatively, you can listen to the episode using the audio player below.
