A Dane’s journey to NCAA football
Between my sophomore and junior years of high school in 2006, my parents came to me and asked if I would be okay with a foreign exchange student living in our home for a year. I quickly agreed that it would be a wonderful experience, as did my little brother. That summer we received a packet with information on a variety of possible exchange students, and my parents asked me to look it over and pick which ones would best mesh with our family.
Almost immediately, a Danish boy named Thomas Kipp caught my attention. His profile mentioned a love of sports, in particular football. This tidbit was cause for some debate, as no one was truly sure if he meant American football or the sport more commonly known in the United States as soccer.
My father thought he meant the former, I the latter. As so often is the case in life, father knew best, as the young Dane’s passion for the hard-hitting game of football became readily apparent after we agreed to house him.
He first saw football in 2003 on a Danish television station called TV 2 Zulu, which showed live NFL games from 2000-2007. Two years later he changed schools and made friends with another Danish boy interested in the sport, and they decided to try and play. Thus began Kipp’s playing career in 2005, just one year prior to when he came to America.
We picked him up in August, and as soon as humanly possible the boy was on a football field. That year Kipp was just 16 years old and only had one year of sub-par training under his belt, regardless, he split time between the junior varsity and varsity teams at Milwaukee Lutheran High School in Wisconsin, playing as a linebacker and occasional kicker.
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During his first season of football in America, his passion was apparent, even if his education in the game was lacking. He had learned to play from less than stellar coaches in Denmark, and came to America with the notion that tacklers were supposed to lead with their heads, a dangerous prospect to say the least. He learned to change his style the hard way, suffering a concussion during a JV game. To this day, he only remembers one of the eight times he punted in the contest.
I best remember the scare he gave our athletic trainer afterwards, who thought he had suffered serious neurological damage because of how he was speaking. Once it was explained to the trainer that Thomas was from a foreign country, however, his worry washed away.
Thomas fit in beautifully with our family that year, and by the end of his stay he was almost like a brother. We had inside jokes, shared memories, and a comfort level that only develops when you live with someone you truly enjoy.
Thomas went back to Denmark and continued playing football, competing on both the club and national levels. He also finished his high school equivalency, always with an eye towards returning to the United States. He traveled all around Denmark with his club team, the Aarhus Tigers, and throughout Europe on the national level, qualifying for the European Championships in Spain and playing through an injured groin.
This past semester he finally made his way back to the U.S., enrolling at Division I FCS Youngstown State University in Ohio to study exercise science and biology. Before enrolling, he got in contact with offensive line coach Carmen Bricillo, with the help of Danish national team head coach Lars Carlsen. Bricillo helped evaluate Kipp’s prospects of making the team and helped make sure he was ready for tryouts in February.
When he first checked the roster after tryouts, Kipp’s name wasn’t on the list. He started walking back to his dorm, dejected, and texted Coach Bricillo to thank him for all his help anyway. That was when he got the news that there had been a mistake, due to a typo his name had been omitted from the list, an error the coaches fixed just minutes after Kipp started the trek back to his dorm.
“It was awesome afterwards,” Kipp said. “But those 20 minutes were horrible.”
After his harrowing experience Kipp started practicing with the Youngstown Penguins, where he says the coaches were still figuring out just how he would fit with the team. Despite being a foreigner he says he was never treated differently outside of evaluating his talent and knowledge levels, as his coaches needed time to see how he matched up with typical American players.
Kipp studied the playbook, did whatever he was told, and come the end of spring practice had impressed linebacker coach Ron Stoops who was pleasantly surprised with Kipp’s progress and prospects for the future.
By the time next season starts in the fall Kipp will be 21 years old, a redshirt freshman, and the only Danish player in Division I football. There are several other Danes in the lower levels of NCAA football, though. Jens Moller is a lineman at Division II Urbana University, while Robert King also plays line for Division III River Forest College. Another former national team colleague of Kipp’s, Shujaa Benson, attends Illinois on a track scholarship.
Kipp sees more European players coming over to America in the future as the popularity of the sport continues to grow overseas. He points to German-born Sebastian Vollmer, an offensive lineman for the New England Patriots, as a sign that Europeans will soon be making their way in college football and the NFL in roles beyond kicking.
“The big countries—Germany, the French—are very good as well,” he said. “I would expect to see them producing more. I would not expect Denmark to produce more; we’re a very small country. Still, the level in Europe has definitely risen.”
Kipp returned home to Denmark last week, but football will never be very far from his mind. His coaches saddled him with the responsibility of adding size to his frame, as well as working on his explosiveness. If any player is willing to put in the work towards their mission, it’s Kipp.
“Right now my only goal is to get playing time,” he said. “In the future though, I want to enter the NFL Draft just to be able to say I did it, even if there is no chance I will be drafted.”
Thomas Kipp was born and raised in Europe, had never seen the sport of American football before 2003, and didn’t start playing until he was 15 years old in 2005, but now finds himself on the roster of a Division I football team in Ohio. He’s a player worth watching, as he’s part of the new wave of football talent emerging in Europe and around the world. Right now, Kipp’s story sounds like an outlier, but down the road, his path may be one more traveled.
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