Rob Koll’s image hangs over the mats inside the North Carolina wrestling room. 

It was Chapel Hill where Koll made his first major impact on college wrestling. He won an NCAA title for the Tar Heels in 1988. He became the school’s first four-time All-American. Even as he's coached elsewhere, Koll has been a longtime supporter of the North Carolina program. 

Now he’s taking another title with the Tar Heels — North Carolina head coach. 

Koll is headed back to his alma mater to lead the Tar Heel program, the school announced. 

After turning Cornell into a perennial contender during his 28-year stay in Ithaca, Koll spent the past two seasons at Stanford, where he was replenishing a roster with high-level recruiting classes. There were hints, however, that he wasn’t fully enchanted with Stanford. 

Koll flew to Oklahoma in the spring to check out what the Sooners had to offer when their head coaching position was vacant. He ultimately opted to stay at Stanford. 

But North Carolina offered something that no other program could — the allure of an alma mater, which is also what created a vacancy in Chapel Hill. 

Former North Carolina coach Coleman Scott departed in mid-August to go back to Oklahoma State, where he, too, was a four-time All-American and NCAA champion. Scott spent eight seasons leading the Tar Heels, highlighted by a 12th-place finish in March at the NCAA Championships — the highest finish for North Carolina in 28 years. 

Two-time NCAA champion Austin O’Connor accounted for half of the Tar Heels’ 42 points at the national tournament in March during his final appearance in a North Carolina singlet. But Koll inherits a roster with two returning All-Americans — 141-pounder Lachlan McNeil and 184-pounder Gavin Kane.