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Mitchell High suspends swim coach one day before state meet

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By EDDIE DANIELS | The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 11, 2009

Updated: 11/11/2009 03:41 pm

On the eve of Thursday's state swimming and diving finals in Orlando, Mitchell High School coach Joe Lampkin has been suspended.

He has been replaced by the school's assistant principal, Jessica Shultz.

According to Mitchell principal Jim Michaels, Lampkin -- in his first year coaching the Mustangs -- has not been dismissed and a decision won't be made until further investigation.

"We have some concerns and we are just looking into things, but at this point, we just felt it was better for Coach Lampkin not to go to the state meet," Michaels said. "We're going to look at it (Thursday) a little further and then make a decision. But he is not been dismissed at this time."

Mitchell's boys 200 medley relay and 200 freestyle relay teams each won at last week's Class 2A-Region 2 meet and are seeded fourth in Thursday's Class 2A state meet, held at the Central Florida YMCA Aquatic Center in Orlando.

Alex Wegener, Ian Ondrejka, Devin McCaffery and Gavin Hunt make up both relay teams.

Ondrejka, McCaffery and Hunt also qualified for individual events. One girls swimmer, Mazie Siddens, also qualified for the 200 individual medley and 100 butterfly.

Although he would not say specifically why Lampkin was suspended, Michaels did say there was more than one concern.

"There's been several issues that have come up that have been concerns and some discontent among parents and athletes," Michaels said. "We just felt it was time to take a real serious review of that.

"There was an issue involving an individual student. The way he dealt with a situation was questioned, but that's still under investigation. Nothing is verified with that. It just was, I guess, the straw that broke the camel's back kind of thing.

"We had another concern, so we didn't want to take any chances of there being any further concerns, that's why at this point we're seriously reviewing it. We're working with the employee relations office with the district to take a look at it."

Lampkin, who is not a teacher at Mitchell, could not be reached for comment. In 2007, Lampkin was fired from his job as the swim coach at Gulf High. No reason was reported for that firing.

Reporter Eddie Daniels can be reached at (813) 259-7066.

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