The newest hire for the Ball State football team's coaching staff was arrested early Sunday morning.
Terry Lantz was charged with operating a vehicle while intoxicated with a blood alcohol content above 0.15, which is a Class A misdemeanor.
Lantz, who rounded out the Ball State football coaching staff as the new safeties coach, was found to have a blood alcohol level of 0.16 on a pair of tests, according to police. He was arrested at 1:58 a.m. Sunday.
Indiana law states that a Class A misdemeanor is punishable by up to a year in prison and a maximum $5,000 fine.
Coach Pete Lembo hired Lantz on Feb. 4 to lead the Cardinals' secondary after the defense gave up 25 passing touchdowns last season.
"Terry Lantz is a family man who has a reserved and unassuming demeanor," Lembo said in a statement to The Daily News. "He is extremely embarrassed about this situation. Good people sometimes make poor decisions."
Lantz was stopped at 1:09 a.m. Sunday at the corner of University Avenue and Dill Street by Muncie Police Sgt. Brad Wiemer after Lantz did not dim his headlights while driving on University. Officer Stash Hellis was dispatched to assist.
The veteran assistant coach, who came to Ball State after 10 years at Wofford College in Spartanburg, S.C., failed three field sobriety tests, according to Hellis in a probable cause affidavit.
"While talking with him about why he had been stopped, I could smell an odor of an alcoholic beverage coming from his person and noticed that his eyes were red and glassy," Hellis said in the affidavit.
Lembo declined to comment on Lantz's future as a coach for Ball State considering the charges.
A 1991 graduate of Louisville and 1993 graduate of Louisiana-Monroe, Lantz is entering his 21st year as a football coach. He was a graduate student at Tennessee and Louisiana-Monroe before taking his first assistant coaching position at Massachusetts. Ball State is Lantz's sixth stop in his assistant coaching career.
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