news-record.com

GREENSBORO — The athletics trainer who told N.C. A&T coaches in an e-mail not to test prospective student-athletes for sickle cell trait before they tried out for teams was fired this week.

The move is the latest fallout in the athletics department from the death of a student in an Aug. 19 track and field tryout, two days after the e-mail was sent.

“Roland Lovelace’s employment at A&T has been discontinued, effective immediately,” athletics director Earl Hilton wrote in an e-mail Thursday. “This change of leadership in the training staff will take the department in a new direction.”

Lovelace had been suspended since Jan. 18, in connection with the e-mail he sent Aug. 17 that told coaches not to perform the sickle cell test.

The reason for not doing the test, the e-mail said, was to save money, and it was sent two days before the death of Jospin “Andre” Milandu after what the school called an unauthorized track and field tryout.

The test, required by the NCAA, costs about $20 and could have revealed Milandu’s condition.

The e-mail from Lovelace was not discovered in the first A&T investigation of the death. It was found after a public records request from the News & Record on Jan. 6.

Hilton did not respond to questions about Lovelace or the school late Thursday. Lovelace was unavailable for comment.

The school’s athletics website listed Janah Fletcher as the chief athletics trainer Thursday.

An internal investigation by the school last fall found that Milandu, 20, of Knightdale, did not have a physical, a sickle cell test or an NCAA waiver of the test on file before the tryout. A&T officials said he was one of seven at the tryout who had not taken a physical.

Testing for sickle cell trait became an issue with the NCAA after 10 athletes died since 2000 from the trait. A&T offensive lineman Chad Wiley died from sickle cell trait complications in May 2008 after a preseason football workout.

After Milandu’s death, the school conducted an internal investigation and eventually fired athletics director Wheeler Brown on Oct. 15 and compliance director Darryl Hill later that month. Track and field coach Roy Thompson retired in December.

Merlene Aitken, an associate athletics director who was copied on the e-mail from Lovelace to coaches telling them not to test for sickle cell trait, was fired Jan. 18. Lovelace was suspended that day.

While Lovelace has shied from interviews since his suspension, his Greensboro attorney, Thomas Johnson, faxed the News & Record a copy of a letter he sent to the school in February.

The letter claimed that Lovelace had done nothing wrong at the school and that Milandu could’ve been saved if A&T coaches had followed NCAA rules.

Johnson was unavailable late Thursday.

Contact Gerald Witt at 373-7008 or gerald.witt@news-record.com