Arizona High School Coach and Director Retire Following Mysterious Disappearance and Death of 15-Year-Old Football Player

The loss of a young person can often send shockwaves through the entire system in which they exist. It comes with many heavy truths and consequences that not everybody may have the heart to brave out. Such has been the case at Cesar Chavez High School where two members of the coaching staff resigned after the death of a 15-year-old football player during a team summer camp.

The football coach William Chipley and the Athletic Director Lenny Doerfler handed in their resignations, which were accepted by the school governing board on September 7. These departures come after the death of Christopher Hampton at Lakeside Blue Ridge. Hampton was discovered in Show Low Lake on July 18.

Why did Chipley & Doerfler resign

Christopher Hampton had been to Cesar Chavez’s summer football camp at Lakeside Blue Ridge with his teammates. The team went to the area for pre-season bonding camp, which is common, when Hampton was reported missing. It took search parties from the Navajo County Sheriff’s Office as well as help from the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office dive team to find and recover his body, which was in the lake the next day.

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Since Hampton’s death, Chipley has not been associated with the team. Assistant coaches who also were at the summer camp were also suspended. As of now, Chipley has been replaced by linebackers coach William Burwell Jr., who was not present at the summer camp. Chavez has won its last two games, with another one coming up at Phoenix Camelback.

Chipley has been around Chavez since the pandemic cut their season short in 2020. The shortened season also caused a mass exodus of players, who transferred to other schools in 2021. When he was hired, Chipley publicly claimed that he was “well over 30 players out the door.”

A Deep Dive Into Chipley

Chipley had initially made his way in the Chavez grassroots program, coaching there and stepping up to the challenge since the mid-2000s. He has since been a coach at Roosevelt School District for nine years. However, since joining Chavez as the freshman team offensive coordinator in 2014., he has never looked back. However, his time at the school has come to an abrupt end after a rather mysterious disappearance and death of a 15-year-old.

Meanwhile, while not enough is known of Doerfler, he had served on the Arizona Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association Board of Directors.

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