FAYETTEVILLE — Arkansas assistant coach TJ Cleveland refuted speculation Monday about his interest in the head coaching job at North Alabama.
"I'm not a candidate at North AL," Cleveland wrote on his Twitter account Monday, two days after the coaching tracker website HoopDirt.com listed him as one of seven candidates for the vacancy.
Cleveland, 37, just finished his seventh season as an assistant coach at Arkansas, his alma mater. Cleveland was a guard for the Razorbacks from 1998-2002.
The nephew of Arkansas coach Mike Anderson, Cleveland has worked on Anderson's staffs at Alabama-Birmingham, Missouri or Arkansas each season since 2002. Cleveland has worked on a series of one-year contracts each season at Arkansas and makes $200,814 per year, according to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette's most recent copy of his employment agreement that was obtained in 2016.
North Alabama was the third school reported to have shown interest in Cleveland since he was hired at Arkansas. He was reportedly a candidate for head coaching vacancies at UAB in 2012 and Southeast Missouri State in 2015.