No self-respecting sports reporter would advocate for a coach to refuse to speak to the media. But in the case of former Stephen F. Austin assistant bowling coach Steve Lemke, we make an exception.
From The Lufkin (Texas) Daily News:
Stephen F. Austin State University assistant bowling coach Steve Lemke chose to resign rather than be fired this spring after the university discovered he had an affair with a student-athlete.
Lemke, 38, who is married to head coach Amber Lemke, resigned April 10 from the program he helped coach to two national titles and two second-place finishes.
(…)
“I knew it was kind of a no-no, but there’s not a rule saying it can’t happen,” Steve Lemke said. “There’s not a law saying I’m going to go to jail for doing something like this. There’s nothing in stone. I guess it’s just an ethics code, like we frown upon it, but there’s no rule, there’s no law broken.”
Hey, same logic as every movie where an animal plays a sport. Show me where in the rulebook it says this anthropomorphic giraffe can’t play hoops! Show me where in the rulebook it says the assistant coach and spouse of the head coach can’t schlep one of the players!
Anyway, this interview gets better:
The affair with the bowler was discovered when Amber Lemke saw a text message from her on Steve Lemke’s phone, he said.
“It didn’t have anything in detail,” Steve Lemke said of the text. “It was just about how amazing I am, basically, in general perspective. Amber saw that and questioned me, and I got to the point where it just built up so much that I basically told her the truth after she dug through my phone.”
(…)
“I was the stay-at-home dad for five years with the kids while Amber got to go off and coach the team, and when she’d get back, I’d run practices on top of taking care of the kids while she was back,” Steve Lemke said. “When they’d travel again, I would sit back and take care of the kids. Then when I got hired on, she almost forced me to run practices. I was a volunteer the entire time before that trying to help out Amber. Once I got hired on, one thing stemmed from another. I felt like I was doing too much for what I was being valued at.”
So she basically owed him an affair, OK.
The Lemkes are getting divorced, according to the report.
James Kratch can be reached at james.kratch@xlmedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @jameskratch.
