Ketchum's faith and passion are the right treatment

Charlie Ketchum is an unassuming man. A shy man. A man of depth.

He tapes ankles for a living, making sure teenage athletes are healthy enough to play the sports they love. He takes care of the students at Bay High School like they’re his own, like he did the kids at Bozeman, Arnold, Mosley and Rutherford at one point or another since 1992, and just like he did the thousands of other high school athletes he’s cared for in the 44 years he’s been an athletic trainer.

Every student, coach and athlete who’s been helped by Ketchum has benefitted from decades of experience and a lifetime of faith.

Ketchum warned that he was shy man as he talked inside his training room, buried deep within the boys locker room in the John L. Cobb Gymnasium. He didn’t want to sound like he was boasting.

Watching him walk around any of the Bay County gymnasiums with his staccato steps and laid-back demeanor, you wouldn’t think the 70-year-old from North Carolina is a jukebox of Tobacco Road history.

Behind his Southern manners that turn every stranger into a friend with a simple handshake and a smile, Ketchum has a voice that’s instructed Olympians, state champions and possibly the flashiest offensive basketball player ever to take the court.

That same voice has serenaded thousands of others, spreading his convictions in a southern gospel quartet.

Yet you still wouldn’t suspect it if you saw Ketchum on the sidelines, ready to spring into action at the first sign of injury. He’s not there for himself. He never has been.

“I enjoy sharing my love of Jesus Christ with the kids by example more than words,” Ketchum said. “Some of the kids here are great. Some of them got to love me as much as I got to love them, and I’m not shy or embarrassed about telling them that I love them.

“The kids keep me young.”

For the kids

 Ketchum’s story as a championship-caliber coach and world-class trainer didn’t start with a  roll of tape in his hands or a stethoscope around his neck as a young child.

It began at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Ketchum spent one year there following his graduation from Catawba College in Salisbury, N.C., in 1961, where he attended on a one-third basketball and one-third music scholarship. But the pastoral ministry wasn’t for Ketchum. A career helping guide young athletes was. His passion initially centered around three schools: Sanderson High School, Bunn High School and North Carolina State University.

He was the head football coach and girls basketball coach at both high schools, and worked as a trainer at N.C. State. Ketchum turned around the girls basketball programs at both high schools, winning the 1979 state title at Sanderson.

His career in athletic training started in the 1960s when nobody else would spray Nitrotan on athletes. Ketchum became a certified athletic trainer in 1984 and left coaching in 1985.

“I guess my love of the kids and wanting to care for the kids was a natural fit,” he said. “It seemed like everywhere I would go they would know I was interested in that.”

A brief retirement

The plan was supposed to be easy to follow. Millions of couples do it every year.

They move to Florida, buy a house, and live with few cares. Ketchum and his wife, Ginge, had moved to Panama City from Raleigh, N.C., during summer 1992 and were ready to retire.

“I came down here planning to do nothing and I found out that you can’t play golf, fish and cut grass but only so many days per week,” Ketchum said.

He gave the retirement thing a month. They moved to Florida on July 31 and during the first weekend of September he drove by Florida Sportsmedicine, which was hosting a Saturday clinic. The following Monday morning Ketchum called Dr. James Talkington and Mark Williams and a few hours later was back at work as a trainer.

In 17 years, Ketchum has remained independent, a fact he’s still proud of. He’s covered all five high schools here and every middle school in Bay County, and served as the Gulf Coast trainer earlier this decade.

Ketchum also has lent a hand to Florida Ironman, the Gulf Coast Triathlon and the Florida-Georgia All-Star Game.

He’s spent the past five years at Bozeman with Coastal Athletic Training Services, but after Gulf Coast Medical Center won the bid to provide athletic trainers, Ketchum was transferred to Bay, a result of personnel shuffling between the two schools.

“The Lord works in wondrous ways,” Ketchum said. “I feel that’s the reason I’m here at Bay. I was upset about leaving Bozeman, did not want to leave Bozeman, but there has to be a reason the Lord sent me here. Don’t know if I did everything I could do there, but it was time to come here in terms of touching these young folks.”

‘They would do everything and anything.’

Of all the teams Ketchum has been around as a trainer, ranging from high school all-star squads to Olympic contenders, his favorite was a group of aspiring football players who played in a now-defunct league.

After he finished his teaching duties at Sanderson at noon, Ketchum would assume his role as team trainer for the Raleigh-Durham Skyhawks of the World League of American Football, the predecessor to NFL Europe. Ketchum enjoyed everything about the Skyhawks, who went 0-10 in 1991, their only season, from the caliber of talent to the determination of the players.

“If they had not folded and the World League had not folded, I would have probably stayed there,” Ketchum said.

The players didn’t enjoy the luxury of a guaranteed contract and didn’t get their $2,500 weekly paycheck if they didn’t play. So it was up to Ketchum and the training staff to keep them healthy.

“They would do everything and anything they could to be able to play,” Ketchum said. “I worked very hard to keep them healthy.

“I enjoyed it. It was my first opportunity to work with that caliber of athlete and really was interested in what they had to do to be able to play.”

The Olympic spirit

Once Ketchum started working with professional athletes, he didn’t want to stop.

It didn’t matter what time of day or night it was.

He was drawn by how world-class athletes trained and cared for their bodies, and as a competitive man himself, Ketchum wanted to work with the best. An application and a few letters of recommendation later, and Ketchum was a trainer at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colo., in preparation for the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia.

 Ketchum was assigned to men’s volleyball, cycling and helped with the wrestling team. It wasn’t uncommon for Ketchum to be awakened by a phone call from an athlete in the early hours of the morning asking for treatment.

“That was the best experience I ever had, just with the Olympic team,” Ketchum said. “I mean, those athletes would do anything to get better.

“The way they knew their body, the things that they knew that were going on with their body.”

His work paid off on wrestler Brandon Slay, who missed a pre-Olympic European tour because of an injured shoulder. Ketchum helped Slay rehabilitate in time for the Olympics, but Slay lost the 167½-pound championship match. He later was awarded the gold medal after Germany's Alexander Leipold tested positive for steroids.

Ketchum also was a trainer for the Paralympics that year and split his time in Australia between the two Games, even missing the opening ceremonies of the Olympics to treat Paralympians. His favorite athlete to work with also was his most challenging assignment.

Matt King, a blind tandem-cyclist, and his partner crashed during the Olympic Trials in 2000 after their composite back wheel “just disintegrated.” Ketchum and a team of trainers had 15 minutes to bandage King’s injuries and had him ready before his bike was repaired. King later qualified.

“I remember most the Paralympians because they were so grateful for everything that you could do for them,” Ketchum said. “There were long hours but it was all worth it because you got a thank you. You always got ‘We appreciate it.’”

Who you know

One of the few men who could take a basketball from Pete Maravich was Ketchum.

Ketchum had Maravich in algebra class at Daniels Junior High in Raleigh, while Press Maravich was the coach at N.C. State. If Ketchum wasn’t careful, he said, Pete would spin a basketball on his finger in class.

“He was wild,” Ketchum said. “All he cared about was basketball. He would bring a basketball to class. I’d have to take it away from him.”

Ketchum’s career afforded him opportunities to be around some of basketball’s greatest minds. He worked at Dean Smith’s and Mike Krzyzewski’s basketball camps, as well as Norm Sloan’s, Jim Valvano’s and Kay Yow’s.

While splitting his time between N.C. State and Charlotte-area high schools, Ketchum and his wife befriended two young basketball players, Faye and Kaye Young. They mentored the Young girls, helping them receive scholarships to Peace College, a women’s school in Raleigh, under Coach Nora Lynn Finch. After two years at Peace, the Young girls graduated and received a scholarship to play under Yow at N.C. State and went on to successful professional careers.

Ketchum stayed in touch with Yow through her battle with breast cancer, and talked to her the summer before she died in January.

The Ketchums became friends of the N.C. State program, hosting the team for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners, and the Youngs were staples around the Ketchums’ home. Kaye Young married former Pittsburgh Steelers coach Bill Cowher, and when he was interviewing with Pittsburgh and Tampa Bay, Cowher asked Ketchum to be on his training staff. Ketchum said he’d go to Tampa, but not to Pittsburgh because it was too cold.

Ginge Ketchum also befriended Lou Holtz’s wife, Beth, while he coached at N.C. State, and the women played bridge together.

Being around a rolodex of well-known figures in sports has given Ketchum a different perspective on how to treat people.

“What goes around, comes around,” he said. “If you treat people nice, if you treat people well, if you let people know that you love them, it makes a life a whole lot easier and a lot more fun for everybody involved.”