He’s bald and sports a beard and a belly.
He’s married to a school teacher.
He loves music, enough so that he played in a jazz band in high school.
He loves history, and enjoys sitting in his recliner and watching it on cable TV. His intellectual curiosity reminds me of another man who coached Wake Forest more than a dozen years ago.
He likes people and isn’t above showing it.
He loves life and all its trappings, and again, isn’t afraid to show it.
He’s not adverse to telling a joke, and knows a good one when he hears it. He’s also not adverse to telling the same joke – if it’s good enough — again, and again, and again.
So I lay down one night, only to wake up to find that Wake Forest has hired my kind of guy to coach its basketball program. Based on the buttoned-up, upper-crust image and identity the school always projected during my 25 or so years as the Deacons’ beat writer for the Winston-Salem Journal, Steve Forbes is among the last people I would have expected to find on John Currie’s list of candidates, much less the one standing behind the podium this morning being introduced as Wake’s next basketball coach.
As stunned as I am at Currie’s decision, I’m even more impressed. Clearly the new director of athletics has ushered in a new era at Wake, one in which appearances and pedigree are nowhere nearly as important as relationships and results.
Sorry Mr. Faulkner, but the past at Wake is finally, at long last, past.
“You can’t be standoffish,’’ Forbes said it this morning’s virtual media conference. “I don’t say no.’’
Exclusion and detachment has been replaced by inclusion and warmth. By the end of his sad, sorely unsuccessful six-season stay at Wake, Danny Manning had been tagged Danny Mannequin. His successor can’t stand still even while standing behind a podium answering questions. He wants to get going. He wants to meet new people. He wants to do what he was hired at Wake to do.
Based on what I’ve read these past few days, and what I saw in this morning’s media conference, John Currie has found and hired the cure to what has ailed Wake basketball over this past lost decade. He has found and hired a coach with a roaring fire in his ample belly. He has hired a coach who hates to lose so bad that he’ll lay awake at night figuring out how not to.
Only in time will we know if his glittering won-loss record at past stops will translate into the kind of success Wake basketball fans once came to expect. But what we already know is that a huge gust of fresh air has whipped through not only the Wake basketball program, but the university as a whole.
And riding that gust is the kind of energy, enthusiasm and hope that has been missing all these years.
Like most of you reading this, I’m excited again for Wake basketball. I’m so excited it makes me wonder – if only for a scant second – if I retired a few seasons too early. What I feel certain about is that two friends who cover Wake daily, Les Johns and Conor O’Neill have a much better beat than they had last week – now that they’re working with a coach who might actually help them do their job.
No, I’m enjoying retirement far too much to contemplate a return, even for the kind of fun I expect to see next year.
But what I will do is extend to Steve Forbes an standing invitation to any Open Mic at Muddy Creek Cafe once the pandemic eases off enough that we can resume. I don’t know what instrument you played in the jazz band Coach, but that hardly matters. And if you’re no Waylon Jennings when it comes to singing, well that’s another similarity we share.
It’s about the making of music among fast friends, something I feel sure you know something about.
Welcome to Winston-Salem, Steve Forbes. About time you got here.
My Take on Whatever 
Great take as always Dan! Yes it’s very refreshing to see this kind of guy with overt and palpable enthusiasm leading the hoops program!
Currie has a pretty good track record hiring basketball coaches, Rick Barnes and Bruce Weber.
I think it likely will take a few years for Wake to be a serious factor in the ACC again. We’ll see.
After Wellman’s last two atrocious hires, I can’t help but be a little skeptical.
As great a record as Forbes has, it wasn’t at a Power 5 school, it was largely at East Tennessee State.
However, for the first time in a VERY long time, I’m optimistic about Wake basketball!
Welcome Coach Forbes and Go Deacs!!
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Thank you Dan — another fine article chronicling the Demon Deacons ongoing basketball developments. I suspect that Coach Forbes’ first order of business beyond this morning’s presser is to reach-out to each player that was on the roster during the past few weeks and assess their commitment level to the program. Not sure if he wants to focus on reeling-in the recruits of his predecessor or to go out and pursue his own ‘type’ of player. I do believe in the ranking system of high school players, and I’m hoping that Steve can soon match-up with the recruiting successes that have been clearly established in Chapel Hill and Durham. We win with the best players combined with articulate coaching as demonstrated at each of the top 15 or 20 programs in the country. Yes, occasionally a three-star recruit like John Collins can develop into an elite performer but Wake needs to consistently attract more four — and periodic five — star players if we are going to aspire and reach the upper echelons of the ACC as well as the country.
Best wishes to Steve Forbes for a very successful career at Wake.
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I don’t know squat about Wake Forest BB but your enthusiasm for the new coach pretty much ensures I’ll be watching the Demon Deacons now that I have the ACC Network back again here in UT.
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Thanks Mr. Landau. Approval is so welcome, especially at my (our) age. Great hearing from you Spud.
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Well said Dan- hiring Steve Forbes is a breath of fresh air for WF basketball and the University as a whole! The last 6 years have been a disgrace and embarrassment to be a WF student, alum, and fan when it came to basketball under Danny Manning for so many reasons. Forbes is a players coach and will get the most out of them, and it will be fun to watch WF basketball again. Can’t wait…thanks John Currie for ending the nightmare!
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Thank you for chiming in, Dan. Please never stop. Welcome back to WFU hoops, a place that we all love. Like Skip said, “We are gonna be good again” and I cannot wait. John Currie just reversed everything about WFU athletics in 5 days. Steve Forbes will be the ventilator that this proud program has needed for 13 years.
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Dan I’ve been reading your blog through the he-who-shall-not-be-named and Manning years, and I am SO PUMPED to finally read these sentiments! It’s been a long drought. I too am excited for Coach Forbes, and exactly for the “tangential to basketball” qualities that you mention. This is gonna be fun!
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Mr. Collins,
How are you doing these days? Hopefully all’s well in western NC amidst the coronavirus. Any first impressions on Forbes now that he’s gotten his first commitment? On the football front, I’m not sure if there’s going to be a season, which would be a shame for a multitude of reasons. But one the reasons it’d be a shame for Wake Forest is that Dave Clawson might have a really good team this year. Take care!
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