New Wake Forest head coach Steve Forbes did not let pressure get in the way of comfort as he interviewed for his first job leading a Atlantic Coast Conference program.
“The greatest thing about that, and it will never happen again, is I interviewed in my bare feet,” Forbes said on The Habershow podcast with NBC Sports national NBA Insider Tom Haberstroh. “I did wear my pants because I was a little paranoid I might have to get up and go to the bathroom or something and I didn’t want to be in my boxers.”
Before Wake Forest athletic director John Currie made the job offer, he arranged for Forbes to interview with Wake Forest legends Tim Duncan and Chris Paul.
Duncan was quiet.
“He just listened,” Forbes said. “He made that kind of clear when he got on there. ‘I’m not on here to interview you. I want to hear what you’re about.’”
Paul was funny.
“I made him laugh a couple of times,” Forbes said. “I don’t remember what I did or what I said.”
Forbes struggled to keep his 16-year-old son Jonathan out of the room when he was talking to the two future Hall of Famers.
“He was trying to come into the room to look at these guys,” Forbes recalled. “I was like, ‘Jonathan, get out, they can’t sign autographs over the computer.’”
For more from Haberstroh, listen to his conversation with TrueHoops’s Henry Abbott on life inside the NBA bubble.