Furman scraps Baseball, Lacrosse, etc.

[gwebb1994]

For reference, Furman's endowment is $694 million, while Gardner-Webb's is $70 million. Their athletic cuts are just part of their planning. If they are making moves this drastic, what can we expect at GW?

Very disturbing trend, missing that revenue from March Madness, and likely football this fall, is going to permanently change the landscape of collegiate sports, especially at the FCS, D2, and D3 levels.

furmanpaladins.com/news/2020/5/18/general-test.aspx

[gwujake08]

Dr Downs tweeted yesterday that no such plans were imminent, but of course that could change

[gwujake08]

GardnerWebbPresident
@gardnerwebbpres
Replying to
@coachjchester
Perhaps elsewhere, but with
@coachjchester
at the helm baseball will thrive at Gardner-Webb!
10:20 AM · May 16, 2020·Twitter for iPhone

[gwebb1994]

Seems to me Furman is trying to get out ahead of the curve so to speak. They are the 3rd smallest school in the SOCON, but has the highest number of sports, athletes, and scholarships of any school. Hard to sustain that even with excellent financial footing/planning under normal circumstances.

Also, Furman has refunded over $3 million to their students. Last I heard, GW was dragging in that regard.

GW will have some tough choices to make, to think we won't is ignorant. So glad to have Downs in charge and not Bonner, although we will unfortunately reap the bounty of his inept leadership during this crisis.

[gwujake08]

I talked to my cousin who is a student at Furman and he said thier new president was very anti-athletics. He said she has been looking to sownsize the number of programs every since she got on campus and now she has an excuse

[notsofast]

May 20, 2020 12:30:44 GMT -5 gwujake08 said:

I talked to my cousin who is a student at Furman and he said thier new president was very anti-athletics. He said she has been looking to sownsize the number of programs every since she got on campus and now she has an excuse

Having come from the world of lower-profile sports, there has been a great deal of hand wringing every time programs are cut, but Jake raises a good point: many of these moves have been discussed, considered, and argued for at BOT meetings for years and the current climate is the perfect excuse for them to pull the trigger. Of course, there are situations where an unexpected and drastic move like this was necessary, but you can't tell me that Cincinnati cutting men's soccer was one of them. They announced it weeks ago, well before any such move absolutely had to be made and well before any meaningful effort could be made to save the program (asking alumni/donors to contribute and endow the program, seeking targeted sponsorships, etc) -- this program was already on the chopping block at some point in the near future.