College World Series means special Father’s Day for Carolina coach, family
Scott and Harvey Forbes will celebrate Father's Day weekend in Omaha the only way they know how: together.
OMAHA, Nebraska — It’s Father’s Day weekend and Harvey Forbes is in Omaha.
This is not particularly unusual. He’s done this trip nine times now. Twice he and his wife of 63 years, Joan, drove the 18 hours from Sanford to Omaha with one of their grandsons in tow. Maybe he is not quite the oracle of Omaha but he can advise you on almost every hotel, restaurant and walking path in the city.
His ninth trip has not included as much walking because he is battling pulmonary fibrosis, and you can hear the underlying frustration in his voice. But it is powerfully overwhelmed by the pride when he talks about the reason he is here: his son, Scott, has coached the Tar Heels all the way to the national championship series, which begins Saturday against Oklahoma.
Harvey has been making this trip since Scott was a first-year Tar Heel assistant in 2006. He’s not here because he wants to grab a little bit of the spotlight. He’s here because, well, if one of his three children is doing something, he’s going to be there.
“I’ve always appreciated having him here just because we’re so close,” Scott says. “But I didn’t understand in 2006 like I do now how fast time goes. I cherish any time I can be with him, but I do have a better understanding now of quality time and taking the time to appreciate all the sacrifices he has made all these years to be here and allow me to be where I am as a coach.”
That’s how Harvey and Joan have created a family that storms Omaha as many as two dozen deep, leading Scott to laughingly refer to his family as “The Griswolds” on multiple occasions. There have been dinners together and ice cream runs and photos by the Road to Omaha statue. And yes, there have also been three victories, but that is not how Harvey measures his trips. In the end, it’s about being together.
Harvey always guessed that Scott would return to Sanford and work with him in that construction company. His other children, Stewart and Diane, both work in the Sanford area, and it would have been so easy to have them all close by all the time.
But Scott wanted to try coaching. Mike Fox was offering a volunteer assistant coaching position at North Carolina, with the key word being “volunteer.”
It meant chasing his dream for another year instead of making the safe choice and coming home to Sanford to work with his father. Harvey’s advice was simple: “I didn’t start this business for you to run it.”
“If he hadn’t told me that, I wouldn’t be coaching today,” Scott says.
But he is. Harvey dismisses his role and credits two key individuals—Scott’s wife, Mandy, and Fox—for his son’s success. But he has been there at every step. He and Joan were at just as many games when Scott was a volunteer assistant as they are now that he’s the head coach. They’ve done what they always do—stand in the background and make other people feel important.
Their impact is obvious in the way the baseball community relates to them. After the Tar Heels beat Southern California to clinch a College World Series berth, Scott was celebrating with his players on the field. Harvey made his way to the Carolina dugout, where a steady line of well-wishers formed in front of his wheelchair. Family members, Carolina staff, friends and family of players and coaches … all had been befriended by this Southern gentleman at some point during the season and wanted to spend just a minute with Harvey to tell him congratulations.
“I like watching Scott because he enjoys it,” Harvey says. “But I get very nervous watching him coach. I never got nervous when he was playing. I coached him when he was 13 or 14 and I never got nervous then. But now, sometimes it’s hard to enjoy the game because you get so nervous. You just want your kids to do well. I try to relax and remember the Lord has a plan for everything.”
No matter how stressful it might be, both Harvey and Scott know he has to be here. The family will celebrate Father’s Day on Sunday.
On Thursday night, Scott had charts and scouting reports and depth charts spread out on the table in his room. He’s studied them, memorized them, prepared the same way that helped put his team in this lofty position. Forty-eight hours from now he will be in the dugout at the national championship series, exactly where everyone in his profession dreams of being. Right now, though? Right now he is exactly where he wants to be.
He leaves the paperwork on the table and walks across the hall to his parents’ room. The family often keeps their doors propped open here so it’s easier to find each other.
He is enjoying the moments. All of them.
“We are going to play for a national championship and that is a big deal,” Scott says, putting quotation marks around the “big deal” part. “But there’s nothing better than baseball bringing people together. As you get older, you appreciate even more that everyone is here. I never wanted to be greedy and say I want to go to Omaha for my dad, and I wanted it more for our players. But I did want it.
“Through all this, I’ve learned that the games are going to fade away really fast. But being together this Father’s Day is something we will never forget.”
