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Coach In Student Sex Case Had Been Investigated By School

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By STEPHEN THOMPSON | The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 8, 2008

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  Lee Fictum

LARGO - Just months before he had a consensual sexual relationship with a 16-year-old female athlete, then-cross country coach Lee Fictum was investigated by campus police for having an inappropriate relationship with the same girl, according to authorities.

After Fictum said he "had not purposely engaged in any wrongdoing," he was allowed to continue working as head coach for the cross-country team and assistant track-and-field coach at St. Petersburg High School, according to school documents released this morning.

Fictum met the girl there when she was a freshman and he coached her.

In January 2007 – roughly six months before investigators say Fictum, 32, began engaging in sexual activities with the child – school administrators counseled him for inappropriate conduct but allowed him to continue coaching, the documents state.

"Mr. Fictum assumed full responsibility for his action and noted he had not purposely engaged in any wrongdoing, but understood that he is responsible for the perception that had been developed," Barry Brown, assistant principal for athletics, wrote in a Feb. 9, 2007, memorandum addressed to Fictum.

On Monday, Fictum was arrested, charged with having sex with a minor. He had resigned in August 2007, the same month investigators say he engaged in a range of sexual activities with the girl.

In late 2006, a parent complained that Fictum had driven the girl home with no one else in the car, documents state. The pair also were seen "snuggling" on a recreation vehicle that was being used to take athletes to a team event, where the girl reportedly never left his side, the documents state. Other girls on the team appeared to be jealous, the documents state, and Fictum and the child's "closeness and exclusiveness" was so obvious that parents noticed.

"This girl was always at his elbow and was following him around like a puppy dog," the documents state.

It was in October 2006, while members of the team were on their way to a boys' meet in Dade City, that Fictum was seen snuggled under a blanket with the girl, her head on his chest and his arm around her, the documents state. "The kids were livid, and the boys were making jokes about it," the documents state.

At the meet, Fictum picked up the girl's lunch tab, the documents state. One mother said "there were several girls there who were without their parents who had to provide money for their own meals and she thought it was weird." The mother said "the girls were saying he was treating her like a girlfriend."

"She stated that the coach was setting himself up with a girl who by her own self admission was sexually active," the documents say of the mother. Even the girl's father didn't make much of the relationship until he found an online communication between the two, court records state.

One child reportedly wrote a letter to the girl, telling her she was going to cost Fictum his job and marriage.

The girl is said to have responded that the girl who wrote her was just "jealous because you're not woman enough to get a man," the documents state. The teen Fictum was seen with often babysat for Fictum and his wife and became involved in his church, the documents state.

Fictum once told a parent that the teen "was a needy child and he was trying to help and reach out to her," the documents state.

One parent wrote Brown, saying, "Coach's poor judgment has made the runners and parents uncomfortable, and caused team division, as well as being an item for gossip through-out the school that has hurt both his and [her] reputation," the documents state.

After conducting its investigation, the school system's Office of Professional Standards decided not to submit a recommendation to then-Superintendent of Schools Clayton Wilcox, opting to leave the matter in Principal Al Bennett's hands, documents state.

Bennett and Brown met with Fictum on Jan. 8, 2007. Fictum was told not to drive student athletes home without trying to contact one of the parents, and he was told not to allow students within his personal space.

"Mr. Fictum reported that he would use better judgment and employ all of his resources to make sensible decisions,'' the documents state.

Reporter Stephen Thompson can be reached at (727) 451-2336 or spthompson@tampatrib.com.

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