Furman baseball losing scholarships

[dungeonjoe]

I just saw a tweet that FU is cutting baseball scholarships. First golf and now this...what is up with that?

[walliver]

I just saw a tweet that FU is cutting baseball scholarships. First golf and now this...what is up with that?

I guess they have to pay for that field turf somehow.

I suspect the golf and baseball cuts are to pay for their lacrosse team.

[Greenville T-Dog Fan]

On WYFF tonight, they announced that Furman was going to be reducing scholarships for baseball and this was after announcing the elimination (I think) of scholarships for golf. In the news piece they said that this was after they just completed their multi-million dollar football stadium upgrade and after they added men's and women's lacrosse. They also mentioned that women's softball may be next for cuts. I know that these are not "money" sports and probably don't draw a lot of alumni donations but still not a good sign for them. I wonder if the football upgrade campaign drained donor dollars away from the general athletic donations?

[BigJohn94]

But Rhett, Fuh-man is the country club of the South. Whatever will they do without a golf team? No Southern country club that I'm aware of doesn't have golf. I'm afraid they will just have to, how do you say it, restructure their admissions pitch.

[Ruckus]

Translation: Furman is chasing Yankee admission dollars.
Baseball and golf by in large don't attract the children of privilege north of the Mason-Dixon.

[Greenville T-Dog Fan]

Just not good PR, because WYFF's tag line in the news piece was......"Furman Athletics' Financial Troubles Continue".........I know that we don't have the nicest facilities and don't have as many scholarships in some sports as some of our counterparts but I never want to turn on the news and hear something like that about our Terriers.

[BigJohn94]

I totally agree. We made a hige jump from D2 to D1AA, and the administration knew it would be a financial burden for many years. We seem to be doing it right, and not trying to keep up with the Joneses. We handled business in the 2 biggest money sports (football and basketball), and then have turned our attention to our lesser revenue sports. While it may be frustrating to our baseball program, women's teams, etc, I'm sure our admins have a long term plan in place to get all of these programs to the proper level of full funding and top facilities. Since we don't have the endowment to take care of these programs in full all at once, we have to mo ve at a pace where we won't break the bank. I fully believe we are doing that. Of course, with more donations, fund-raising, etc, we will eventually get there.

As far as the Barneys are concerned, I hate that they are ridding themselves of Golf scholarships, as well as other athletic cuts. I think there was a rash decision to add lacrosse, and to start that program from scratch must be more than they envisioned. Hate it for the athletes/students that are affected.

[oldT-Dog]

Women's lacrosse is coming to Wofford if administration gets approval. This is to comply w Title IX. I think we are being as prudent as possible, but things are tight in athletic departments all over the country. I think Furman's issues are just the beginning. If NCAA goes to "cost of attendance" it will create even more budget problems.

My hope is that if tough decisions have to be made, that Wofford handles them better than Furman. They have been playing golf there since 1930, and from what I'm reading the golf alumni had no idea this was even under consideration.