The meteoric rise of the Charlotte 49ers into the 2011 College Cup is like something out of a movie, and coach Jeremy Gunn is the orchestrator of their run.If you read my column, you know I am not an astute and knowledgeable fan of soccer.
But to spend 45 minutes over breakfast with Charlotte soccer coach Jeremy Gunn is to want to launch a corner kick, head a ball into a goal, pick up a yellow card or even a red card.
Gunn's passion for his team, sport, school, adopted city, music, cricket, Leeds United, the NCAA's student-athlete system, hard work and tea with milk and sugar fills Starbucks on East Boulevard. Every other conversation in the room, and there are at least 25, is nothing but white noise.
Gunn, 40, makes tea sound like a reward.
At about noon today, he and his team will get another when they leave for Hoover, Ala., and soccer's College Cup. They'll play Creighton Friday and, if they win, play the North Carolina-UCLA winner Sunday.
The achievement is tremendous. Like basketball and football, soccer has storied programs, and Charlotte has not been one of them.
Gunn, however, insists the 49ers played some of the best soccer in the country in 2010.
"But you have to have a certain resolve to win games against the great teams," he says over oatmeal that was warm when he ordered but will soon turn cold. "There's more steel to the team this year."
Take a break and eat if you want, I suggest.
Dark, lean and usually smiling, Gunn is accustomed to cold oatmeal. He starts talking and there's just so much to say.
"Certain programs win national championships and go to final fours," Gunn says. "You think that's what happens to other programs, the so-called special programs that have an aura about them. We had that tipping point where you realize the teams you've long been looking up at, you finally look at square in the eye."
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