Stephen F. Austin assistant women's bowling coach Steve Lemke has resigned after it was discovered that he was having an affair with a bowler on the team. Lemke, 38, resigned from the program on April 10, and is married to the team's head coach, Amber Lemke.
Under Lemke, the women's bowling team has won a pair of national titles. Women's bowling is the only sport at Stephen F. Austin to win a national championship since the school moved up to Division I. Stephen F. Austin won the NCAA women's bowling championship in 2016 and 2019 in addition to finishing as the runner-up in 2015 and 2022.
"He's not working here anymore," SFA athletic director Ryan Ivey said, according to the Lufkin Daily News. "From a departmental standpoint, he had a choice and he chose to resign." The student's identity hasn't been revealed.
Steve Lemke said that the relationship was consensual, per the Lufkin Daily News, but might've been "amplified to the magnitude that it is now because of the national championship caliber that we've developed. I think it's more of an ethics thing when it comes to the college as far as a coach/teacher being with a student-athlete."
According to Ivey, Steve Lemke violated the school's relationship rules with the nature of his relationship with the student-athlete. Amber and Steve Lemke have since filed for divorce, according to court records.
"I knew it was kind of a no-no, but there's not a rule saying it can't happen," Steve Lemke told the Lufkin Daily News. "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."
Consensual sexual relationships between staff and students at the collegiate level aren't prohibited by Texas state law. However, most universities have policies that prohibit those types of relationships from taking place. The affair was discovered when Amber Lemke found a text message on Steve Lemke's phone related to the affair.
Amber Lemke is slated to return as the team's head coach.