James Forbes (basketball)
| Olympic medal record | ||
|---|---|---|
| Men's Basketball | ||
| Silver | Munich 1972 | United States |
James "Jim" Forbes (born July 8, 1952) is a former American basketball player. His collegiate career at the University of Texas at El Paso was crowned by his membership on the U.S. national team in the 1972 Olympics and was part of the controversial 1972 Olympic Men's Basketball Final.
"The game ended, and we won. Then it ended again, and we won again."
"They were going to keep going until they got the outcome they wanted: the Russians winning."—Jim Forbes[1]
Forbes and the rest of the team have never accepted the silver medal.
Forbes was drafted by the Chicago Bulls in the fourth round of the 1974 NBA draft, but he never played professionally. Forbes later served as an Assistant Coach for the UTEP Miners before going to coach high school basketball in El Paso. As a high school coach, he guided the Riverside Rangers to the Texas 4A Final Four in 1995 and the Andress Eagles to the Texas 5A Sweet Sixteen in 2009. Forbes has more than 530 career high school coaching victories.