Historia

1972 Ola Kimrin, a star kicker to be, is born on the leap-day 29th of February.

1978 Ola starts his career by playing soccer in the club that goes by the name Vintrie IK.

1988 Fun facts: Ola is one of the few who actually have played with his father in a real game, this in the soccer club Vintrie. It is about at the same time that he plays his first game of football with the school team ”Berga Chickens”. His position isn’t as a kicker but as… well… everything, the reason being a lack of players.

1991 During a soccer game Ola hurts his knee really bad when his knobs get stuck in the ground while he’s being slide tackled. The inside of his knee gets totally destroyed. The knee, and Ola, gets recovered after the operation, but the soccer career is over.

1993 Ola follows some friends along to the practices of the Limhamns Griffins and starts kicking. Pretty soon he has a position in the team. Football is at this point still a very small sport in Sweden (it’s probably still like that today, but the sport is getting bigger and bigger) and Griffins is one of the top teams. In 1993 and 1994 the team won the Swedish championships.

1995 Ola goes to El Paso, Texas to study. He checks out the University team in football, Utep Miners, and is mildly impressed by their kicker. Ola knows that he can kick better than him. After showing the coach what he’s worth Ola gets a scholarship for three years studies.

1999 The Swedish national team gets the bronze in the World championships in Italy. Ola is the kicker of the troop.

1999 Ola gets in contact with the agent Benjamin Geller.

2000 Ola arouses the curiosity of the kicking coach of the Dallas Cowboys, the legendary Steve Hoffman, Ola gets to fly to Dallas to show him what he can do. Hoffman sees Ola’s potential but he chooses to bide his time.

2001 Ola signs with Frankfurt Galaxy in the NFL Europe. He has a good season and amongst other things he’s named ”Special Team Player of the Week” twice during the season, one of the times after first making a game go into extra time thanks to a field goal and after that settling the game in the same fashion.

2001 Ola notes a new Swedish record in longest field goal in an international game against Finland. 57 yards.

2002 Hoffman wants to sign Ola to Dallas. Unluckily Ola has already signed a new contract with the Frankfurt Galaxy.

2002 After the season in Europe Ola gets a preseason contract with the Denver Broncos. On the last game before the real season kicks off Ola gets the chance on an ”impossible” field goal, 65 yards, 2 yards longer than the official record. "The kick is good" and a roar is heard from the public of the Invesco Field at Mile High all the way home to Sweden. Anyway, Denver chooses to negotiate and write a contract with one of the definite star kickers of the NFL, Jason Elam, who has played in Denver for 10 years and been selected to the Pro Bowl three times. Unfortunately Ola doesn’t get a contract with any other NFL team either although the sport commentators agree on that ”the Swedish Rocket” ”belongs in the NFL".

2003 Ola chooses to skip the season in Europe and instead he trains with the Dallas Cowboys during the spring and summer. Sadly there’s a negative answer again after three practice games, one week before the season starts. Dallas choose to go with the kicker they signed the year before, Billy Cundiff, since he now has (one year) more routine of the NFL than Ola has.

2004 Ola decides to do another season in Europe to get more experience of playing real games. He plays with a new team in the league, the Cologne Centurions. He has a good season with 100% both on field goals (4) and extra points (21).

2004 Washington Redskins signs with Ola prior to this year’s preseason. As usual the place is far from guaranteed. The present kicker in the Redskins, John Hall, has seven years experience of the NFL and plenty of good seasons behind him. But Ola doesn’t see any problems, only opportunities: ”I’m at least as good as he is”.