West Deptford’s Kenny Lim is intense on football field and in classroom
The senior running back/defensive back, a Princeton recruit, and his teammates will face top-ranked Haddonfield on Friday night.
Two people persuaded Kenny Lim to try football as a seventh grader.
One was the kid who couldn't catch him at recess.
The other was his sister, who had been a cheerleader for West Deptford's youth program.
"She was like, 'You really should go out,' " Lim said.
Her encouragement struck a chord, especially since Lim was hearing the same sort of thing when his middle-school class would head out to the playground.
"People would be like, 'Hey, you're pretty fast,' " Lim said.
Today, Lim is a senior all-purpose star at West Deptford, one of South Jersey's top programs. He is a go-to running back, a big-play defensive back, a straight-A student who has committed to continue his athletic and academic career at Princeton University.
Lim has come a long way since he finally decided to go out for football. But he would like to believe his best days in a West Deptford uniform still are ahead of him.
Lim will lead No. 15 West Deptford (3-1) into Friday night's showdown with No. 1 Haddonfield (5-0) in a WJFL Colonial Division clash with major division, South Jersey Group 2 playoff and Top 25 implications.
"It's like Coach said, 'It's one of those games you dream about playing,' " Lim said.
Through the first third of his final season, Lim is tops on the team with six touchdowns. He has 283 rushing yards with four touchdowns and 78 receiving yards with two more TDs.
He also returns punts and kickoffs and plays a mean defensive back.
"He has a chip on his shoulder," West Deptford coach Jason Morrell said of Lim. "We've seen it since the summer. He was the first one in the door to the weight room, 5:30 a.m., five days a week, and he was just crushing the weights."
Morrell said Lim epitomizes the West Deptford program because of his work ethic, commitment to the classroom, and success on the football field.
"You go down to the youth field and all the kids will be like, 'I want to be Kenny Lim,' " Morrell said. "Kenny realizes that. He understands what that means. You can see it in the way he talks, the way he carries himself."
Lim is a three-year starter. He ran for 1,003 yards and 10 touchdowns despite missing time with a knee injury as a sophomore for a team that went 12-0 and won the South Jersey Group 2 title.
Last season, Lim ran for 1,035 yards and 13 touchdowns in just eight games. He missed two full games and part of another with a concussion and was forced out of two games — including the sectional championship game loss to Haddonfield — by a sprained knee.
With Lim on the sideline for the second half of the title game at Rowan University, West Deptford wasn't quite the same team and Haddonfield rallied for a 21-17 victory.
"It still hurts," Lim said of his team's last meeting with its fiercest rival.
Lim ranks 16th in a class of 225. His favorite subject also is his toughest, advanced-placement physics. He's also taking AP English, AP European history and honors calculus.
"My mom has always told me, 'You don't get the grades, you don't play football,' " said Lim, who plans to major in engineering at Princeton.
Lim is the son of South Korean immigrants. His parents and older sister were born in South Korea. He was born in Philadelphia after the family emigrated to America.
"They came here for my sister and me," Lim said of his parents. "They wanted a better opportunity for us, the better chance for us to make our way in the world."
Like many seniors approaching the halfway point of their final football season, Lim knows the meaning of cooler weather and shorter days: His scholastic career is winding down.
Lim and his classmates know this could be their last battle with Haddonfield, although the teams could meet again in the South Jersey Group 2 tournament.
Still, there will be something extra special about the bus ride up Route 295, the arrival at Haddonfield's historic stadium and the opportunity to knock off the Bulldawgs less than a week after they rose to No. 1 in the rankings.
In a little more than 10 months, Lim will be wearing Princeton's orange and black. He's determined to make the most of his limited time in green.
"It's really starting to sink in that after this year, we'll never play with each other again," Lim said. "We have a brotherhood we formed since playing in the midgets. We want to play for each other, play for coaches, play for the town, really."