Midlands middle school wrestling coach fights suspension after on-campus confrontation
Irmo Middle School’s wrestling coach is fighting for his job after a confrontation with a school janitor left him suspended in the middle of the season.
Coach Tommy Sevilla says the school’s decision to relieve him of his duties this month has left his wrestling team without a coach as they seek to finish out the winter sports season.
Several people spoke at the Lexington-Richland 5 school board meeting Jan. 13 asking that “Coach Tommy” be allowed to return to the wrestling team soon. But Sevilla told The State he’s been told his suspension is indefinite and he’s unsure when or if he’ll be allowed back into the program he’s lead for the last year and a half.
It started in December right before winter break, when Sevilla said he had his wrestlers running on the track behind Irmo Middle after the school day and one student took a tumble, hit his head and started bleeding. He tried to take the student back inside to give him some medical attention, when he found that they had been locked out of the building.
This wasn’t the first time Sevilla’s team had been locked out, he said. He said the kids tried to attract the attention of the custodian through a window, but he didn’t respond to them. It took the wrestling team 30 minutes to get back inside, after they circled the building and were able to get in through the music room.
When he found the custodian who had locked them out, Sevilla was livid.
“He said, ‘You locked yourself out,’” Sevilla recalls. “I told him to stop messing with my kids.”
The wrestling coach said he reported the incident to his supervisor. But afterwards he said he was unsure what exactly he had said to the man.
“You can’t see your reflection in a pot of boiling water,” Sevilla said.
But the wrestling coach was soon in a meeting with Lexington-Richland 5’s human resources, and was placed on suspension from his job coaching the middle school wrestlers, with no indication when he might be able to come back. A letter sent to Sevilla earlier this month placed him on administrative leave pending “an investigation into allegations regarding your unprofessional interactions with an employee at Irmo Middle School.”
The move left Irmo Middle without a wrestling coach as the team enters a key stretch of the season. Sevilla told The State that when he tried to attend his son’s match at Gilbert High School on Saturday, he was asked to leave and escorted out of the building, as his suspension bars him from athletic events and school grounds.
Sevilla suspects his suspension might be tied to a complaint he filed with the U.S. Department of Education after his son, who has type 1 diabetes, suffered a major spike in his blood glucose levels following an Irmo High School football practice last summer, leading to a painful bout of diabetic ketoacidosis.
“He was six days out of commission, and three or four days he was screaming in pain on the bed because his body cramped up,” Sevilla said.
He believes coaches violated his son’s 504 plan, which spells out required accommodations for students under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Now he says he worries how his suspension is affecting his children.
“It’s very shameful for them to have to deal with dad getting fired,” he said. “I have headaches.” He also feels bad for his wrestlers, who “I love like sons and daughters.”
Lexington-Richland 5 declined to comment on Sevilla’s suspension, as the district “cannot comment on an ongoing Human Resources matter,” a district spokesperson said in a statement.
Wrestling parents showed up to support Sevilla at the Lexington-Richland 5 school board meeting on Jan. 13, telling board members the coach had been a positive influence on their children.
Nicole Brown’s son plays multiple sports at Irmo, but, ”Out of all his coaches, Coach Tommy is the only one who took him up under his wing and showed him the ropes of anything he needed,” Brown said. “He’s not just a coach, he’s a teacher.”
Sevilla’s wife Melodie also praised the amount of effort her husband has put into the Irmo Middle wrestling program.
“My husband goes above and beyond for these kids. I’m picking up kids at 5:30 in the morning to get them on the bus,” she said.
“These kids are our family, and for these kids to be punished and their coach taken away midseason ... it’s not fair for these kids who have worked hard and put in all this effort.”
Brown said without Sevilla, her son is losing interest in continuing with the wrestling team. She’s unimpressed with the accusation that led to his suspension.
“I would want anybody to be aggressive when it comes to saving my child,” she said.
This story was originally published January 23, 2025 at 5:30 AM.
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