In the 1990s, ESPN frequently aired a program that showed highlights and interviews from the Final Fours of the 1970s and 1980s. Because the show typically aired during the afternoons, it became a staple of the sick day experience for basketball-obsessed children like your faithful narrator.

When you're a kid, you see college basketball's big names the same way you see the biggest franchises in professional sports. Duke, Kentucky, UCLA and North Carolina are teams, not programs. They are every bit as much of a sports constant as the Yankees or the Cowboys or the Bulls. With that line of thinking firmly in place, it boggled a young mind to watch multiple highlights of the Houston Cougars competing for national titles while existing in a time when University of Houston basketball was basically never heard from.

How could this happen? How does a team go from competing at a sport's highest level to near irrelevance in such a short period of time? How does a program essentially disappear?

The Charlotte 49ers have as many Final Four appearances as Memphis, Wake Forest, Florida State, Washington, Iowa State, Pittsburgh, Oregon and Notre Dame do. The program has produced regular season and postseason championships in three different conferences, and from 1995-2005, it was one of the most consistent performers in all of college basketball.

That last paragraph would likely shock a large chunk of college basketball's teenage fan base, because, for all intents and purposes, the Charlotte 49ers have joined the ill-favored fraternity of college hoops ghosts.

In a span of 11 seasons beginning in 1994-95 and ending in 2004-05, Charlotte -- which was known as "UNC Charlotte" until 2000 -- appeared in the NCAA Tournament eight times. The program was home to a pair of Conference USA Players of the Year in DeMarco Johnson and Eddie Basden, and a national Freshman of the Year in Rodney White. The 49ers went toe-to-toe with programs like Cincinnati, Louisville and Marquette, and won three Conference USA championships.

When conference realignment hit college hoops like a tornado in 2005, Charlotte was viewed as one of the biggest winners of the shakeup. The 49ers, always the awkward cousins of the ACC powers in their area, were finally headed to a true East Coast power conference in the Atlantic 10. In every aspect -- recruiting, location, competition -- it seemed like a perfect fit.

Like most disappearances, what happened next is difficult, if not impossible, to explain.

Since 2005, Charlotte has not earned a bid into the NCAA Tournament. The 49ers have won 20 or more games just twice, they have had losing records in four seasons and their lone postseason appearances have been a trio of trips to the NIT. In eight seasons as a member of the Atlantic 10, the 49ers never lost fewer than five conference games, never won more than 11 and produced a league record above .500 only three times.

In 2010, Bobby Lutz, the man at the heart of the most successful stretch in UNCC hoops history and one of the hottest coaching names in the sport at the time the 49ers made the move to the A-10, was fired. Lutz still owns winning records over John Calipari (3-2) and Tom Crean (6-4), and was 3-4 against Rick Pitino.

During his stint in Conference USA, Lutz thrived on bringing elite junior college talent to Charlotte and convincing players to buy into his program. When the 49ers moved to the Atlantic 10, Lutz and his staff began aiming higher, attempting to land some of the big fish in their area who were ordinarily reserved for the ACC powers keeping UNCC hidden with their shadows. It didn't work out particularly well.

"I probably didn't handle the transition as well in recruiting," Lutz told ESPN about a month before his firing. "It was just different."

Last season, Charlotte moved back to Conference USA.

Earlier this week, the program was hit with yet another setback when it was announced that head coach Alan Major was taking an indefinite medical leave of absence. It's the second time this year Major, who had two eye surgeries and heart procedure this past summer, has been forced to step away from the program because of medical issues.

The 49ers entered league play with a record of 6-6, and were promptly beaten soundly at home by Old Dominion. If a return to national relevance is coming, it's highly unlikely to take place over the course of the next three months.

Time will tell if Charlotte's return to C-USA is little more than the program chasing the ghost of its more successful former self. Reappearing is always more difficult than disappearing. Just ask any 49ers fan who believed the good times were never going to leave, and then remained convinced that they were destined to return.