Percy Botchway is the kind of person you hope you never need to deal with but if you do, you will be grateful that he is around. Botchway has been providing athletic training services for BSM for the past two years, dealing with bumps, bruises, sprains and a myriad of other physical ailments.

A 2014 graduate of St. Cloud State University with a Bachelor’s degree in athletic training, Botchway works for the Institute for Athletic Medicine, which is a service of Fairview and North Memorial hospitals. He is contracted by BSM to provide athletic training services for various teams.“I’ll be at certain games or make sure there is another trainer present if I can’t be there or if there are multiple games going on at the same time,” Botchway said.

Botchway provides game-day coverage for soccer, football, and cross-country running in the fall; basketball, wrestling, hockey, and dance in the winter, and lacrosse, track and field, baseball, and softball in the spring.“Varsity football is the only sport that requires me to be at every level, otherwise, I am at the junior varsity and varsity games for other sports,” Botchway said.

Keeping BSM athletes in the game is more than a full-time job, as there are games almost every night during the school season and on Saturdays. “I do work for the clinic some mornings before coming to the high school, plus I will work different tournaments and camps that use the Institute of Athletic Medicine for athletic training services, I definitely stay pretty busy during the school year,” Botchway said.

Over the course of a 9-month school year, Botchway deals with countless “minor” injuries, such as bruises and sprains. But working with collision sports like football and hockey, the severity of the injury can get ramped up. “I do have to deal with the occasional fracture or dislocation,” Botchway said.

Keeping Red Knights in the game and following teams to a State championship has been rewarding for Botchway, but running out onto the field to look over an injured Case Keenum or Karl Anthony-Towns is still a goal. “Working with the high school athletes at [BSM] has been more rewarding than I ever expected, I enjoy it very much. My ultimate goal when I first got accepted into the sports medicine program was to work with a professional sports team,”  Botchway said.

For now, BSM parents can be glad that Botchway is around, keeping their athletes in the game.