SoCon announces cost containment measures for 2020-21

[FUpaladin08]

So much for that nice fairly new baseball facility. Hard to be impressed with the financial management

Not to mention the stadium update. Terrible just terrible. I bet Dan Scott is very upset. Baseball is his favorite. Furman is getting ripped a new one on social media. Very bad pub.

What exactly and realistically would you have done if you were the President, the AD, or a member of the Board of Trustees?
I am proud of the courageous decision-making in the context of a very difficult, very real situation.

I believe I read dropping baseball and Lax saves $5 mil a year. Reading this Wyff article and it sounds like there are major funding issues with the endowment losing $100 mil and enrollment for the Fall down. This is not going to save anything, let alone slow the bleeding. Seems they should have done more. If I was in charge...IDK sell the retirement home, charge for parking at sporting events, do like the SoCon and cut travel expenses by going digital, sell the Vinings apartments, increase enrollment. All of those have downsides just like cutting sports. Cutting two sports and crossing your fingers won’t be the end.

https://www.wyff4.com/article/furman-un ... k/32585793

[Paul C]

No, Furman is not a poor school. It’s in decent shape financially in a landscape that gets more and more challenging every year. Posted this in another thread but worth dropping here.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/schifrin/2 ... 47734d770d

It could be that the Board and Admin see the landscape becoming even more difficult in the future, they are taking steps now to ensure sustainability before it becomes a crisis.

My question, given the unsustainable place the athletic dept was in, is why keep women lax and/or softball? Assuming title IX compliance wouldn’t be an issue if you eliminated both the men’s and women’s sport....if schollies are equal.

[apaladin]

If you believe the WYFF baseball was not losing money or costing anything. Lacrosse prolly was a loser as most other sports are. 5 million to FU is a drop in the bucket. The quoted 100 million dollar loss to the endowment will come back when/if the economy comes back. Dropping these sports will not be noticeable except FU will lose a lot of publicity/recognition/notoriety it got from baseball.

[Paladin91]

I can understand dropping Lacrosse, but dropping baseball is ridiculous. Not liking the direction the University has gone over the last few years under the direction of Elizabeth Davis - much too left leaning in my opinion. And what kind of vehicles did they have the endowment in? The market isn’t that far off from where it was before the pandemic. I think it’s time for new leadership at the top - I just don’t like the direction Furman is headed and will be difficult to support as an alumnus going forward.

[The Jackal]

I can understand dropping Lacrosse, but dropping baseball is ridiculous. Not liking the direction the University has gone over the last few years under the direction of Elizabeth Davis - much too left leaning in my opinion. And what kind of vehicles did they have the endowment in? The market isn’t that far off from where it was before the pandemic. I think it’s time for new leadership at the top - I just don’t like the direction Furman is headed and will be difficult to support as an alumnus going forward.

There's a PR issue, for certain.

I would assume that the University is working with information we don't have. I do not think these decisions come lightly as they know, at the very least, there will be a backlash regarding any measures of austerity.

If the decision was to try and find a way to save on costs on athletics, it would be hard for any committee to not circle baseball and lacrosse. I say this as a guy that would rather watch a baseball game than do just about anything.

The more basic question would be to ask what is the return on the investment?

[tim]

I can understand dropping Lacrosse, but dropping baseball is ridiculous. Not liking the direction the University has gone over the last few years under the direction of Elizabeth Davis - much too left leaning in my opinion. And what kind of vehicles did they have the endowment in? The market isn’t that far off from where it was before the pandemic. I think it’s time for new leadership at the top - I just don’t like the direction Furman is headed and will be difficult to support as an alumnus going forward.

Furman has been left leaning for quite a while.... whatever, but these questions are bound to come up about the president with yesterday's news. Is six years about the normal tenure nowadays?

[Roundball]

Come on people. Can’t we keep politics out of the discussion? This is not a left or right issue. It a money issue.

[aqualung]

Horrible day for Paladin fans everywhere. I'm extremely disappointed with this news. Has anyone answered the scholly question...are they cutting 45 more in addition to Lax and Baseball? What the hell is an endowment for? We've had a historical 11 year bull market and you cannot absorb an expected correction? If it was down $100MM its now likely only down about $35MM due to the recovery in the markets. Very poor short term decision making. Also, cutting all remaining staff retirement contributions by 2.5%??? That also only saves penny's and is a huge morale suck, just like cutting LAX and BB. FU.

[Affirm]

I do not see any left-leaning or right-leaning in President Davis.
I see a very solid leader whose work impressed me greatly.
I hope she continues at Furman as President for at least another 15 years, though I fear that she will leave before then.

[Furmanoid]

I wonder why they didn’t just cut the scholarships and maybe cut coaches‘ salaries but keep the teams. I thought it said somewhere that there were about 21 scholarships and about 70 nonscholarship players. If all those guys leave now, at 64k a head, it’s hard to see how you save much money. Maybe they’ll stay and play club, but they could go pretty much anywhere and play NCAA cheaper than playing club at FU.

[FUKA61]

Only about10 % of students pay the full cost.

[Affirm]

I wonder why they didn’t just cut the scholarships and maybe cut coaches‘ salaries but keep the teams. I thought it said somewhere that there were about 21 scholarships and about 70 nonscholarship players. If all those guys leave now, at 64k a head, it’s hard to see how you save much money. Maybe they’ll stay and play club, but they could go pretty much anywhere and play NCAA cheaper than playing club at FU.

Keep in mind that existing scholarships are being honored through whenever they complete their academic endeavors at Furman.

[Furmanoid]

That makes it worse. Now you pay 21 guys $64k to not play and get rid of 70 guys who were paying to play.

[fufanatic]

So much for that nice fairly new baseball facility. Hard to be impressed with the financial management

Not to mention the stadium update. Terrible just terrible. I bet Dan Scott is very upset. Baseball is his favorite. Furman is getting ripped a new one on social media. Very bad pub.

What exactly and realistically would you have done if you were the President, the AD, or a member of the Board of Trustees?
I am proud of the courageous decision-making in the context of a very difficult, very real situation.

NOTHING! Furman is not a poor school. What is cutting these sports going to accomplish? Will this keep the doors open? Won’t even be noticeable to the bottom line. Funny Wofford, PC CSU, Erskine, can afford baseball but FU can’t.

PC is going non-scholarship in football. Erskine is D2. CSU is awful in just about every sport. Wofford has historically been awful in most sports outside football and men's basketball. What I will say though is Wofford has 20 sports and is much smaller than Furman. How are they keeping the lights on? My guess is they spend substantially less than Furman in most sports outside of the top two. I'm sure that model was considered, but I get not wanting to just have warm bodies in a number of sports and actually wanting to be competitive.

[FUBeAR]

Horrible day for Paladin fans everywhere. I'm extremely disappointed with this news. Has anyone answered the scholly question...are they cutting 45 more in addition to Lax and Baseball? What the hell is an endowment for? We've had a historical 11 year bull market and you cannot absorb an expected correction? If it was down $100MM its now likely only down about $35MM due to the recovery in the markets. Very poor short term decision making. Also, cutting all remaining staff retirement contributions by 2.5%??? That also only saves penny's and is a huge morale suck, just like cutting LAX and BB. FU.

Sounds like they need some CFO’in’ up there in TR. I know a good one with time on his hands. I think he’s still banned from campus though. Maybe we can get the SC Gov to use Emergency Powers to issue a waiver...