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Tommy Deas and Aaron Suttles are reporting that the reason why Alabama placed assistant strength coach Corey Harris on administrative leave is that he provided money to safety Ha Ha Clinton-Dix:
Harris made a short-term loan to Clinton-Dix in an amount less than $500 at some point in the summer, an apparent violation of NCAA Bylaw 16.11.2.2, which states that "an institutional employee or representative of the institution's athletics interests may not provide a student-athlete with extra benefits or services, including, but not limited to ... a loan of money." Clinton-Dix has provided bank records to UA athletic compliance department representatives that show a withdrawal in the amount he said he repaid to Harris, TideSports.com has learned.
Adding to the intrigue is that the compliance department there reportedly found a link between Harris and a representative of a sports agent.
That is the extent of the information we have now, aside from the fact that Nick Saban suspended Clinton-Dix indefinitely. The amount of money in question is small and supposedly was paid back already, so I can't imagine the suspension will last for all that long of a time. My bet is that it's being phrased as "indefinite" because technically they don't know when the compliance department will tie up all of the loose ends, but if it's longer than a game, I'll be shocked.
The more worrisome angle is that Saban's staff had a guy tied to an agent. We can't say from the information at hand that the guy was a runner or that this transaction had anything to do with the agent, but Saban is the guy who once compared agents to pimps. There are too many shady characters hovering around college athletics to keep them all out, but that's still a guy on the staff.
UPDATE
The report has an update noting that the loan came shortly after Clinton-Dix's car got broken into. If that's all this is, a staffer helping out a guy after he was robbed with a small loan, then c'mon. Get him on the field this weekend.
UPDATE 2
Jon Infante at the Bylaw Blog notes that the NCAA has provisions in place to assist athletes in the case of misfortune like being robbed. Clinton-Dix might have gotten a better deal by turning to that rather than getting a loan from Harris.