Steve Forbes Interview

Tomorrow afternoon, it is going to be Wake Forest, Florida State, so we're now going to catch up with the head coach of the Demon Deacons, Steve Forbes, who joins us fresh off the win against Boston College a couple days ago. We had Coach Ham on earlier in the week. Before we get to tomorrow's matchup, though, you said after the game that you have a quote that you tell players after road wins that isn't exactly PG.

Now, we have a thing called the FCC here that this allows us from saying certain words on the radio, but want to share any hints on what exactly that non PG quote might be? My dad was very Tarkanian at Fresno State. Dad lost the game at home in three years, and my head coach research something to the team afterwards like that was monumentally funny...but something that needs to stay in the locker room. So, there's some things, Josh, that are you know for public consumption, there's some things that gotta stay in the locker room. This is one that's gotta stay in the locker room. That makes sense. Coach Ham, he says he loves gospel music and he says he's going to send me one of the gospel albums that he's helped produce.

I'm still waiting for that to arrive in the mail. You said there's a song that you had that you sang at Wichita State that you're not going to sing because it's special to Wichita State. But as you were talking about that, you said you're a pretty good singer yourself. What can you sing, Coach Forbes?

Ah, you know, I can't sing anymore, but probably from all the yelling and maybe a couple cigars mixed in there once in a while. I sang in a wedding when I graduated from high school. One of my friends got married and I used to sing in the choir at church and at school.

And so I grew up that way, but yeah, it's been a long time. Now my family loves music and my children do and my son plays guitar, electric guitar in regular and he's taking lessons. We go to a lot of concerts, so music is big in our life.

But I would say that it's probably not very big in my family for me to be singing anymore, I can tell you that much. I'm picturing wedding singer Steve Forbes the same way I picture young Sandler winning over the heart of Drew Barrymore. What was on that set list?

After you got out of college, you're a wedding singer. What was on the set list? I think it was Endless Love.

Yes. I think maybe that, I think maybe the scene from Ice Castles, I can't remember. Maybe just You and I by Eddie Rabbit. That might've been it. You know, you're talking 1980s now, early 1980s.

So this is way before you were born. So yeah, that's probably it. I think I remember back, right? And if I do remember back, right, that was a jolted girlfriend's sister who got married.

Maybe I was trying to get her back by singing to her. I don't remember, but that was a long time ago. It's weight coach Steve Forbes with us here. Zay Musius was with us yesterday and he was describing how important the eight days were between the Notre Dame loss and the win against BC because I started doing the math a little bit with the timelines. It seemed like to me, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, that those eight days was the first week that you guys were able to practice without a game, focusing on yourself and not have, you know, being able to do so with subs even because you weren't able to do that, I think, until New Year's Day. Just give me a sense from the coach's perspective how important those eight days were to get things caught up.

They were really important, Josh, and I'm glad you brought that up. We did take one day. I went back and counted. I think we had a month from Georgia Tech to Notre Dame. We played 10 games. We had something like 17 practices, maybe three days off, but those practices were always in preparation for the next game, and those practices are different than when you're just practicing on the things that you need to work on to become a better team sometimes. So we took one practice. After we got beat at Georgia Tech, I was really disappointed in ball movement on offense, so we spent the entire practice Monday, played Sunday night. Came in Monday, practiced really hard on ball movement, and you could tell, you know, when we went to Virginia Tech. Now, they played it in play zone. They played land, but the ball moved back a lot better, and it was just from the lack of practice time.

It really wasn't anything to do with the players, and so I think the same thing. I think that, you know, once the Notre Dame game was over, we took Wednesday off. We watched the film on Thursday, and then we had a Thursday-Friday practice, just, you know, the things that we needed to kind of go back and work on that we do offensively and defensively, and then Sunday, majority of the practice was about us, and then at the end, we put the scout in, and so, yeah, I do think that was important, especially because we missed so much non-conference. Now, typically, at this time of year, I don't prefer not to take that many days off.

I like to keep playing, but in a situation where we had missed so much in basically the whole month of December from, you know, basically from Thanksgiving to New Year's Eve or New Year's Day, you know, we had just so much in there we needed to go back and work on, and we were able to do that. Follow him on Twitter at ForbesWakeHoops. It's Steve Forbes with us here on Sports Hub Triad. While I'm thinking in this moment about your Twitter account, there are a couple things I wanted to ask you about where you've been on this show talking about how you felt Adam West was robbed of an Oscar for his performance in Batman. But then you've gone a step further, I think, maybe a step too far by saying that the movie Leatherheads with George Clooney, which, by the way, it was shot, many parts of it were shot in Winston-Salem, that movie, you felt that movie was robbed of an Academy Award. I don't know if we have the same movie taste in this, but how would you describe your taste in movies, Steve Forbes?

Very eclectic. I like a whole different genre of movies. Now, I do not like science fiction, okay? I'm not of Star Wars, that type of guy. Lord of the Rings?

No, my wife and kids love that stuff. I don't. I like dramas. I like funny movies. I really enjoy history movies. I watch a ton of movies about history.

I watch foreign movies, subtitles, I do a lot of that too. But Leatherheads is very well-acted. There was a great dramatic part of that where I think George Clooney and the guy from the office wrapped around the railroad tracks getting ready to fight, but they had to explain to each other where they couldn't hit each other.

Don't hit me in my hind-quarter, don't hit me in my shoulder, don't hit me in my stomach or my arm, and then they just proceeded just to punch each other in the face for about five minutes. I thought that was kind of funny. So I think that's a very well-acted, and there's a great song, and they sing over there from World War I in the bar.

It's just a really well-acted movie. You know, I was thinking yesterday, I'm looking at the success Virginia Tech's having. As Mike Young, when Mike Young transferred, or not transferred, took the Virginia Tech job, a lot of guys transferred out of his program, including Kerry Blackshear, who was the best player on that team, and a lot of people felt, oh man, this is gonna be an impossible rebuild from a guy coming from the SOCON and to Tech, and we're seeing them right now. They're one of the best teams in the league, one of the two or three best teams going in the ACC right now, and I think of your program a little bit when I see it. In terms of what's possible for what your program, sooner rather than later, when you consider all the transfers you guys had out of your program, and you also brought along a player from the SOCON, and you came across from the SOCON, and has found a way to make it work in stretches this year, when you're looking at, I don't know how you timeline success, or you have two-year plans, one-year plan, five-year plans, moving things forward, but has what Coach Young's done in the ACC given you optimism about how quickly you can turn around Wake Forest?

Well, for sure. I mean, I'm happy for Mike, and I'm glad the way he's doing it, but really, truthfully, he's using the exact same point, the same blueprint I used at East Tennessee State. He's taken, he's got some good high school players, he's gotten some division one transfers, he's got some grad transfers. I don't think he's taken any junior college players, but Mike, Coach Hampton, I think has three on his team, so I think in this day and age you have to construct your rosters in different ways, and Mike did not do it that way at Wofford. He just did it with high school players, so it shows his versatility and the strength of his staff to go out and construct a roster that has been obviously very competitive, one of the best teams in the ACC. On top of that, he's an outstanding basketball coach, so then you put those two things together, it's a pretty good combination.

I'm not sure, I don't know, I don't think we can probably totally construct our roster the same way they can at Virginia Tech, and we're gonna do the way that's best for Lake Forest, but I feel very confident that we will be very competitive very soon. I regret in your press availability earlier this week not asking you your thoughts on the Super Bowl, because you seem very interested to talk about it. People say that you look like Bruce Arians. Adam Gold, our midday host, looks kind of like Bruce Arians as well.

We picked one of them for that. In addition to that, you've been tweeting about it, you even quote-tweeted something I put out about Kevin Harlan's call of the streaker, which I found to be entertaining. Did you see Tom Brady at the boat parade getting off the boat?

You know, I didn't, but I'm sure he had a good time and well-deserved. I mean, I think what people have to realize is that's the culmination of a lot of hard work when you get to the title game and you win, and you've sacrificed so many things to get to that. And I don't think the normal person probably doesn't realize how much has to be sacrificed to, out of your personal life, to achieve greatness. You know, and I hear Coach Saban talk about that a lot, about what are you willing to give up to become great? Because if it was easy, everybody would be doing it. You know, and I talk to my players about that all the time.

What, personally, are you willing to give up, to sacrifice, to do more, to become great? And that's the difference-maker. So I'm sure for him, it was probably just, hey man, I'm gonna let my hair down a little bit. I didn't really, I didn't see it, but you know, I grew up in the Midwest. I went to some Chiefs games. I grew up a Packer fan.

Packers weren't very good in those days, in the early 70s. But you know, I always enjoyed the Kansas City games. I have a good relationship with Mitch Holtus. Voice of the Chiefs.

Voice of the Chiefs, and I like him a lot, and I think he's really good at what he does. And you know, the Super Bowl is something I grew up on. I can remember one of the first memories. I can remember my father was watching the Dolphins and the Cowboys, I think, 72. I think that was the game when Nixon called in a play at halftime.

Interesting, I bring up Nixon in the time of impeachment right now, but you know, it's just kind of interesting how the world works. But I can remember those games just kind of sitting with my dad, watching them. And so we did that here at my house, and I don't watch NFL football.

I used to. I kind of quit watching it when I went to college. I love college football. I don't really watch the NFL really.

The Super Bowl's probably the only game I watch. And so I thought it was really a good game to watch. Coach, congrats on the win against B.C. Best of luck against Florida State tomorrow. Thanks for doing that. All right, Josh, always a pleasure, and look forward to talking to you again sometime.