Georgia Southern University’s Athletic Director Tom Kleinlein announced today that the head coach of the men’s basketball team Charlton Young has been dismissed.

“At 6 p.m. yesterday afternoon I decided, I had a meeting with Charlton Young, our head basketball coach and decided that we needed to go into a different direction with our basketball program” Kleinlein said.

Young and the Eagles’ basketball team just finished their season with a loss in the second round of the Southern Conference tournament with an overall record of 14-19 and a league record of 7-11.

“Charlton and I met for approximately 20-30 minutes to discuss the future of our program at which time I informed him that I felt that we needed to go in a different direction,” Kleinlein said.

The GSU alum became the 12^th head coach of the Eagles’ basketball team in the 2009-2010 season and the third alum to guide the program.

“Charlton Young represents Georgia Southern with the utmost character, he has done a tremendous job of taking a program that had trouble when he arrived and getting it to a level of respectability,” Kleinlein said. ”He does a great job in our community he does a great job with our players and he does a great job with our organization at the same time I felt that where we needed to go was beyond where we are now. A change in leadership is what I decided to do.”

“At this time I will announce the fact that we are starting a national search for our basketball program. At this time that search committee will be made up of myself, a faculty member and a university administration member. ” Kleinlein said.  “We have not entered into any kind of agreement with a search firm at this time, I will make that decision in upcoming days.”