On Monday July 8, Steve Forbes was announced as the new Wichita State men’s basketball assistant coach. Forbes will replace former assistant coach K .T. Turner who left the program for the same position at Southern Methodist University.

“I’m excited and honored to be a member of Coach Marshall’s staff at Wichita State,” Forbes said.

Marshall has high praise for Forbes.

“Steve, for more than two decades, has been part of successful basketball programs,” Marshall said in a news release.

Forbes comes to Wichita State from North Florida State College, where he was head coach for two years and compiled a 61-6 overall record for the Raiders. Five of his former junior college players went on to play basketball in Division I schools this season.

Wherever Forbes goes, nationally ranked recruiting classes tend to follow.

Forbes spent five years at the University of Tennessee. He helped lead the Volunteers to three Sweet Sixteen appearances and the programs first ever Elite Eight in 2010.

Along with the entire coaching staff at Tennessee, Forbes was fired in the spring of 2011 for violating N.C.C.A bylaws during an investigation stemming from a cookout at Head Coach Bruce Pearl’s home. It was not Forbes idea to have players at the head coach home. This act got Forbes a one-year penalty clause, where he could not coach NCAA basketball for a year.

Forbes was unemployed for nine months. Uprooted from Knoxville, he had a hard time finding coaching jobs due to the fallout of the cookout.

Then, North Florida State College came calling. Forbes was back in to coaching.

Forbes also spent two years at Texas A&M, starting in 2005, where both recruiting classes were ranked top ten in the country.

Forbes previously spent three years at Louisiana Tech University and helped sign two nationally ranked recruiting classes and a top ten class in 2003.

From 1989-1999, he served as an assistant coach at Idaho University. In his first season, The Vandals improved to a 16-11 record and signed a nationally ranked recruiting class.

Forbes career has come full circle back to the state of Kansas. One of his first head coaching jobs was at Barton County Community College where he spent five years as a coach; two as an assistant from 1993-1995 and three as a head coach.

He coached the Cougars to a 68-28 record in three seasons1995-1998. Forbes coached three All-Americans, and finished the season twice with a national ranking.

Forbes graduated from Southern Arkansas University with a degree in secondary education where he starred as a student athlete not in basketball, but in baseball.