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Where Does Steve Forbes Rank All-Time Among ETSU Basketball Coaches?
He might be the most popular and was the highest paid. But was he really the best?
Steve Forbes is back in town.
The former ETSU and current Wake Forest head men’s basketball coach is back in town, first for a banquet tonight and then for a Buccaneers-Demon Deacons game on Wednesday, October 29th at Freedom Hall.
It’s a chance to relive the good old days. Few will ponder if Tennessee had not fired John Currie as Volunteers athletic director in 2017 and simply allowed him to hire Greg Schiano or Mike Leach as head football coach Currie never would have been in a position to become Wake Forest’s AD and lure Forbes from ETSU.
Nor will they wonder why Wake Forest played real games that counted in Johnson City against the Buccaneers in 1977 and 1989 but now, even with ETSU’s former coach at their helm, all the Bucs can get is a lousy exhibition game at home against the Deacs.
Instead, they’ll look back at Forbes final season when ETSU won a school-record 30 games and suggest the Buccaneers could have made a run in the NCAA Tournament had it not been cancelled by COVID-19.
It’s possible. But because ETSU has slumped since Forbes’ departure, and because former coaches like Madison Brooks and Les Robinson are…
