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The Charlotte 49ers didn't look too far for a new men's soccer coach.
Kevin Langan, the team's associate head coach this season, was named the team's head coach Tuesday.
Langan replaces Jeremy Gunn, who resigned recently to become coach at Stanford.
Langan inherits a program that was one of college soccer's biggest stories this season, when the 49ers advanced to the championship game of the NCAA tournament's College Cup, losing 1-0 to North Carolina.
Eight starters will return next season for a team that is bound to have high expectations.
"I am extremely excited and honored to become the head coach of the Charlotte 49ers soccer team," Langan said in a statement. This "has all been quite humbling, to be honest."
This is Langan's first collegiate head-coaching job. He came to Charlotte in 2009 after spending four years as the head boys' coach of the Classics Elite Soccer Academy in San Antonio.
Langan came to the United States in 2004 from the University of Bath in England. Raised on the Channel Island of Jersey, Langan played professionally for England's Bristol City and represented England in two World University Games, captaining the team in 2003. He also played for England's "futsal" (indoor) team.
Langan played for two seasons as a graduate student for Incarnate Word, a small college in San Antonio, helping the Cardinals to the NCAA Division II Elite Eight in 2004.
He is the seventh coach in the 49ers' 36-year soccer history. Gunn was 64-26-14 in five seasons at Charlotte.
