College Bowling Coach Caught Cheating on Wife, the Team’s Head Coach, with a Player: 'Kind of a No-No'

Steve Lemke defended his affair in a local newspaper interview, while his wife filed for divorce

An assistant college bowling coach’s extramarital relationship with a player led to a split from his wife — who is the team’s head coach — and his own resignation from the school.

Steve Lemke, the former assistant coach for the Stephen F. Austin University bowling team, reportedly chose to resign rather than be fired by the university earlier this spring when the school found out about the relationship.

SFA athletic director Ryan Ivey told The Nacogdoches Daily Sentinel on Tuesday the former coach broke the university’s ethics policy and said Lemke is “not working here anymore.”  Ivey said the school began investigating the coach’s affair “as soon as we found out.”

“We support our student athletes and obviously [Lemke's wife] Amber, with what was going on,” Ivey said.

Meanwhile, Lemke defended the relationship in an interview with the newspaper.

"I knew it was kind of a no-no, but there's not a rule saying it can't happen," Lemke told the Sentinel. "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."

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The newspaper did not identify the student-athlete Lemke had an affair with, but reported it was a member of the bowling team. The outlet also reported Lemke and his wife Amber Lemke, the team’s head coach, have filed for divorce.

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Lemke said his wife found out about their relationship after seeing a text message from the student-athlete on his phone. “It didn’t have anything in detail,” Lemke said. “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.”

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The coach blamed the team’s success for having “amplified” the news. The SFA women’s bowling team won NCAA Championships in 2016 and 2019, and most recently finished as the NCAA runner-up in 2022.

Amber will remain the team’s head coach, the school said. She has coached the Lady Jacks bowling team since the 2011-12 school year, while Steve had been a volunteer until he was hired in 2019 as an assistant.

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