John Cunningham, the Director of Athletics at the University of Cincinnati, announced the school will discontinue its men's soccer program, effective immediately, on Tuesday.

The financial uncertainty caused by the novel coronavirus pandemic played a role in ending the program, Cunningham said, but it wasn't the only reason. He recently reviewed the long-term budget implications of the athletics department and the decision to cut the men's soccer program was determined late last week.

Cunningham said the school will not discontinue any other sports programs.

"The coronavirus kind of allowed me to take a step back and look at the entire picture of our athletics department and what we could manage in terms of the number of student-athletes that we support," Cunningham told The Enquirer in a phone interview Tuesday. "When I did that, it became clear to me that this was a difficult move, but the right move."

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The men's soccer program had $907,745 in total operating expenses in the fiscal year 2019 and $181,247 in total operating revenues while distributing 9.66 scholarships, The Enquirer confirmed through an open records request.

Scholarships for current players in the program will be honored for the duration of their academic careers. Players on the team are eligible to transfer to another school's soccer team without penalty and the school will help them reach out to other programs.

Cunningham informed UC's soccer players of the decision to cut the program through a Zoom video chat at 10 a.m. Tuesday morning.

"Obviously, I would’ve like to have told them in person, but this is the way of the world now," he said.

UC began its men's soccer program in 1973 and had an all-time record of 385-408-84 with NCAA Tournament appearances in 1998, 2003 and 2006.

The Bearcats had a 5-11-1 record last season and longtime coach Hylton Dayes resigned on March 13. Initially, UC planned to fill Dayes' position.

"The assessment with soccer started with our review of the possible head coach candidates that we had," Cunningham said. "We were looking into the process of starting interviews and we certainly felt the strain of some of the financial issues going on in our country.

"That was sort of bubbling up at the same time that we were talking about the future of men’s soccer and it became clear this was the move that needed to be made because we couldn’t support the men’s soccer program the way we needed to support it."

The full financial ramifications from the pandemic, of course, remain unknown. The NCAA basketball tournament was canceled. The American Athletic Conference canceled all practices and competitions for spring sports last month.

Could there be staff pay cuts?

"I haven’t gone down that road yet because we don’t know what the fall will look like, but that’s certainly a possibility going forward," Cunningham said. "We’re going to look at all aspects of our budget, including salaries, to try to weather this really difficult storm that we’re all going to face. What that storm looks like has yet to be determined."

The NCAA granted an additional year of eligibility for seniors who were unable to compete in their spring sport. Cunningham said they will work to support athletes who want to return.

"We have worked closely with our spring sports' head coaches to determine how many we'll have coming back and financially what we can afford to provide them," Cunningham said. "We're providing as much as we possibly can and, in most cases, it's going to be very similar to the scholarship they received their last semester at UC."

Cunningham was hired Dec. 18 after Mike Bohn departed for the University of Southern California.

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