Hunting Hills High School Lightning linebacker Edward Kim hopes to one day study medicine, but for at least the next four years will be studying the anatomy of a blitz.
Kim, the Central Alberta High School Football League defensive player of the year and two-time provincial team linebacker will suit up for the University of Alberta Golden Bears football program next year, signing a letter of intent last week.
He will join a Golden Bears team that struggled to a 1-7 last year in Canada West play and has a record of 8-32 since 2011.
The six-foot-two, 215-pound Red Deer native will also be partly under academic scholarship, called the All Canadian Incentive program where he will receive full tuition if he maintains a grade point average of 3.2. That achievement made his high school head coach Kyle Sedgwick proud.
“With the football side of things I’m sure he’ll contribute to U of A, he makes their program better on the defensive side,” Sedgwick said.
“But he’s also going to be a guy in a number of years who is quite successful in the field of medicine, where he will accomplish great things I’m sure.”
Kim translated a high 90s average in the classroom, one that earned him Hunting Hills High School academic athlete of the year last year, to the football field.
He also was the defensive captain for the Lightning this season where they went all the way to the Central Alberta High School Football League city division final.
Sedgwick, who coached Kim since grade 10 said the linebacker’s intelligence is off the charts both in the classroom and on the field, making him incredibly easy to work with.
“He’s a physical specimen. Very rangy player, sideline-to-sideline, very fast,” Sedgwick said.
“He’s a guy you really didn’t have to coach a lot, especially when it came to systems and game planning or reading the opponent because he was so far ahead of most players at that age because of his intelligence.”