"Like hockey, it is a contact
sport and you get to hit people." --
Antti Kurenniemi |
Antti
Kurenniemi got his first look at American football when
he watched the 2005 Super Bowl between the Philadelphia Eagles and
the New England Patriots on television. He was hooked.
Now, the UW-Stout exchange student from Tampere, Finland, is
making his bid for playing time with the Blue Devil football team
as a cornerback.
"I found the game so fascinating," Kurenniemi said. "There is a
tactical side that is more complex than where I was playing hockey.
Like hockey, it is a contact sport and you get to hit people."
Like many Finnish youngsters, Kurenniemi grew up playing hockey
and he played hockey for 17 years before putting on the football
pads three years ago for a hometown team.
"I started playing hockey at a young age, but I wasn't real
talented at it," Kurenniemi said.
Kurenniemi played two years with the Tampere Saints, starting off
as a running back in a wishbone formation. He made the switch to
defense when the team moved to an I-formation and was the odd man
out. Injuries on the defense allowed him to move to cornerback, a
spot Kurenniemi found more to his liking.
The Saints were a member of Finland's top tier of eight teams for
two seasons. But before the start of the 2011 season, injuries took
their toll and the team was forced to drop a couple competition
levels.
Kurenniemi wanted to play top-tier ball and went 200 miles to the
hometown of his father to find it, playing for the Rajaritarit
(Border Knights) from Lappeenranta.
"I wanted to keep playing at the top level," Kurenniemi said,
explaining there are three levels of American football in Finland.
Kurenniemi played nine games this past spring and summer for the
Border Knights before coming to the United States.
A mechanical engineering student at the Tampere University of
Applied Sciences, Kurenniemi was looking at coming to the United
States on an exchange program. His university had a partnership
with two schools – Bemidji State University and UW-Stout.
Kurenniemi had to apply and be accepted by the program and was
only asked to rank the two schools in the order he preferred to
attend. Stout was his first choice, and he couldn't have been
happier when he was assigned to attend Stout.
"I am happy they put me here," said Kurenniemi, who arrived at the
Minneapolis-St. Paul airport two days before Stout's football camp
began. "Everyone has been so interested in Finland and they have
been so helpful and nice. I was only allowed two suitcases, so the
team helped me out with some things I couldn't bring."
While Kurenniemi was interested in playing football during his
stay in the States, he did not contact Stout coach Clayt Birmingham
until after he had been accepted to Stout. The coach asked
Kurenniemi to send some game tape.
"He contacted us and he sent some film over the internet,"
Birmingham said. "He was a decent player over there and we wanted
to make this a good experience for him."
"I got into school first, then pursued the football," Kurenniemi
said. While at Stout for just the single semester, Kurenniemi plans
to take some classes in industrial management, a few physical
education classes and some American history courses.
Classes have not yet started, but the learning curve for
Kurenniemi has started on the football field. Fluent in English, he
is just working to process all of the football information he is
learning.
"I am pleased with my own progression, but I have a lot to learn,"
Kurenniemi said. "I have learned so much that I haven't been able
to translate everything to the field.
"The pace of the game is faster here, and there is competition for
every position. Here there is actually a second string, third
string, fourth string. At home, everyone who wants to get in (to
the game) does."
"We didn't know what we were going to get when he came in here,"
said co-defensive coordinator Travis Destache, who works with the
defensive backs. "We were really surprised. Athletically, he has
all of the tools. He has definitely moved up the depth chart and
hopefully we can get him onto the field."
"I didn't expect to play," Kurenniemi said. "I am just happy to
get an opportunity to practice. I have done much better than I
expected."
Kurenniemi would like to translate his experience at Stout into
more playing time when he returns home. Kurenniemi did not make the
roster of the Finnish national team and has his sites set on making
the 2014 team.
Destache said Kurenniemi has fit in very well with the team.
"He is learning tons, but our guys are learning tons from him,"
Destache said. "At the end of practice, during stretching, the
defensive backs are all learning a Finnish word of the day."
Birmingham, who has made several trips to Europe to promote and
teach American football, believes having Kurenniemi as part of the
program is good for both sides.
"It is great to have him here," Birmingham said. "This is just
another, different experience for our players as well."