Jim Mitchell steps down as Bellarmine men’s lacrosse head coach

Jim Mitchell has stepped down as head coach of the Bellarmine University men’s lacrosse team. Sources informed College Crosse’s Chris Jastrzembski about Mitchell leaving Bellarmine earlier this week. Chris reached out to the school for comment around 4:00 PM this afternoon & shortly thereafter Bellarmine released a brief press release announcing the news.

Bellarmine University announced today that men’s lacrosse head coach Jim Mitchell stepped down and will be leaving the university to pursue other professional opportunities. “We appreciate his service to our program and we wish him the best,” said Bellarmine Athletic Director Scott Wiegandt. The university will immediately begin a national search for a new head coach for its NCAA Division I men’s lacrosse team.

Emails sent to Mitchell’s Bellarmine account were bounced back on Tuesday. Additionally, it appears that Mitchell profile page is no longer available on Bellarmine’s website; if you click his name on the press release it will take you to the Bellarmine Athletics home page and the same thing happens if you try to look it up on Google. As of right now, the June 2018 Bellarmine men’s lacrosse press release that announced Mitchell’s hiring is still up, as is a September Bellarmine Athletics YouTube video featuring him.

The Knights went 3-10 this last season, a slight regression from their 4-9 season in 2018, but they did lose four games this season by a single goal, so they were at least in the mix in many of their games this year. Mitchell was previously an assistant coach at Bellarmine before becoming its head coach, having served on the Knights’ coaching staff during the 2013 and 2014 seasons. He was at Rutgers from 2014-2018 after his first stint at Bellarmine.

Bellarmine joins Harvard, Stony Brook, Hampton, and Marquette as teams looking for head coaches. Navy (Joe Amplo) and Fairfield (Andrew Baxter) filled their open slots.