Rod Clark is serving a two-game suspension for Tennessee basketball as the Vols assistant coach and UT work together with the NCAA to address the violation, UT announced Monday.
“Coach Clark has acknowledged his error in judgment and accepts full responsibility,” UT said in a statement. “We appreciate his cooperation throughout this process.”
The third-year assistant coach will not be on the bench for the Volunteers’ season opener against Tennessee Tech on Monday (6:30 pm ET, SEC Network+) at Thompson-Boling Arena at Food City Center. He also won’t be traveling with the Vols to Wisconsin for their Friday game against the Badgers.
Clark has never been charged with any previous NCAA violations or compliance issues during his tenure at Tennessee or Austin Peay or Illinois-Chicago, a source with direct knowledge told Knox News.
UT cannot provide further comment or information on specific violations due to NCAA bylaws.
Clark was hired prior to the 2021-22 season when UT had two vacancies on staff following the hiring of Kim English as head coach at George Mason and the hiring of Desmond Oliver as head coach at ETSU.
English is now the head coach at Providence and Oliver is an assistant at USF. Vols coach Justin Gainey was hired to fill the secondary vacancy.
Clark was an assistant coach for one season at Austin Peay during the 2020-21 season. Before that, he was at Illinois-Chicago for one season.
Clark, from Kansas City, Missouri, trained at Sunrise Christian Academy in Wichita, Kansas, from 2017 to 2019.
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He played his final two college seasons at Lindsey Wilson College in Columbia, Kentucky. He played his first two seasons at Neosho Community College in Kansas and Redlands Community College in Oklahoma, respectively.
Mike Wilson covers University of Tennessee Athletics. Email him at michael.wilson@knoxnews.com and follow him on Twitter @Written by MikeWilson. If you enjoy Mike’s coverage, consider a digital subscription that will give you access to everything
