Steve Lemke, an assistant bowling coach at Stephen F. Austin University who is married to the head coach of the bowling team, Amber Lemke, stepped down from his position after it was discovered that he was having an affair with a player on the team.
Lemke resigned on April 10 after Athletic Director Ryan Ivey gave him an ultimatum.
“He’s not working here anymore,” Ivey said via Nathan Hague of The Daily Sentinel. “From a departmental standpoint, he had a choice and he chose to resign.”
The Lemke’s have filed for divorce.
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When asked about the affair, Steve Lemke seemed to defend his actions while admitting he knew it was wrong.
“I knew it was kind of a no-no but there’s not a rule saying it can’t happen,” he 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.”
Amber Lemke became aware of the affair after finding a text message from the team member on her husband’s phone.
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Steve Lemke mentioned his frustration with his role as a long-term volunteer and then assistant to his wife.
“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,” he 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.”