From the A.D.'s letter:
"Before I arrived at Furman last summer, university leadership was in the late stages of developing a comprehensive long-term strategy for Furman Athletics. These discussions considered fiscal sustainability, the student-athlete experience, the competitiveness of our programs and the university's continued investments and focus on its academic programs. Furman could not continue to sponsor 20 varsity sports programs and support the number of current student scholarships with the ever-increasing costs of intercollegiate athletics and still continue to provide a competitive, world-class experience for all of our students-athletes. Furman, which has the third-smallest enrollment of the 10 Southern Conference schools, had the highest number of varsity sports, student-athletes and athletics scholarships in the conference."
This was happening with or without COVID, we just didn't know it yet. And the sports they picked were pretty much set it stone in my opinion. You aren't getting rid of football or men's hoops. You have to keep most or all of the women's sports due to Title IX. You aren't going to give up historically excellent soccer, running, tennis or golf programs. That really only left baseball and men's lacrosse.
