Fairborn official: Tyler Summitt joining girls basketball coaching staff was ‘miscommunication’

Tyler Summitt signals to his Louisiana Tech players during a game against Mississippi State in December 2014. AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis, File

Tyler Summitt signals to his Louisiana Tech players during a game against Mississippi State in December 2014. AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis, File

Fairborn schools have clarified the coaching staff for the high school’s girls basketball program.

Last week when the district announced that it had hired former player Brooklyn Summit to become the new head coach, the announcement included a quote from Summit that her husband Tyler would be among her assistants.

However Tyler Summitt has not applied nor been approved by the Fairborn City School board of education as a coach for next season, a school district official said this week.

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Tyler Summitt resigned as the women’s head basketball coach at Louisiana Tech in 2016.

Brooklyn Summitt announced in a release last week about her hiring that she looked forward to Tyler helping her coach the Skyhawks. Fairborn athletic director Kevin Alexander said on Tuesday there was a “miscommunication” about those comments.

“Brooklyn is the only board-approved Fairborn girls basketball coach for next season,” he said. “The rest of the staff and assistants will be addressed and approved later this spring.”

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Brooklyn Summitt is a former standout player at Fairborn and graduated in 2012. She played collegiately at Marquette, where Tyler Summitt was an assistant coach, and transferred to Louisiana Tech. Tyler was Tech’s head coach from 2014-16 and resigned after “engaging in a relationship that has negatively affected the people I love, respect and care about the most,” he said at the time.

According to Alexander, Brooklyn’s hiring is her first head coaching position. Tyler, the son of former Tennessee women’s basketball coach and National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Famer Pat Summitt, now deceased, has not coached since leaving Tech.

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The only other person the Fairborn school board considered last week for hiring as a girls basketball assistant coach was Chelsey Gevedon, a former teammate of Brooklyn’s at Fairborn and who has been a Fairborn girls assistant the last two seasons.

Brooklyn Summitt succeeds Jim Cole, who resigned after one season (11-12), citing family obligations.

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