Photo Courtesy of Wake Forest Athletics

A collegiate basketball coach originally from Lone Tree has been named Atlantic Coast Conference Coach of the Year for the 2021-22 season. 

Steve Forbes guided the Wake Forest Demon Deacons men’s team to a 25-10 overall record, and 13-7 mark in the ACC, finishing in fifth place. In his second season in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, Forbes helped Wake to a 19-win improvement over last year and the 13 regular season conference wins tie a school record. He received 40 votes for the award from a 78-member panel of coaches and media members. Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski was second with 19 votes. Forbes is also a finalist for the Jim Phelan National Coach of the Year Award. 

Forbes is the eighth all-time coach at the program to win Conference Coach of the Year and the first since Skip Prosser in 2003. Forbes’ career has included stops as an assistant at Southwestern Community College in Creston, Barton County Community College in Kansas, University of Idaho, Louisiana Tech University, Illinois State University, Texas A&M University, University of Tennessee, and Wichita State University. He has been a head coach at Southwestern Community College, Barton County Community College, Northwest Florida State, and most recently at East Tennessee State. 

With the Blue Raiders he was named conference coach of the year twice, won the Hugh Durham National Coach of the Year award for most outstanding mid-major coach, and led them to a school record 30-win season in 2020 before COVID-19 canceled the NCAA tournament. 

Forbes, a 1983 Lone Tree High School alum, was an All-State basketball selection for the Lions as a player. Wake Forest wrapped up their season losing to Forbes’ old school Texas A&M 67-52 in the NIT quarterfinals.