UNIVERSE ALIGNS
Forbes perseveres, helps turn Trojans basketball program into winner again
LOS ANGELES >>
Four years ago, an astronomy class nearly ended McKenzie Forbes' career.
Back then, in what should've been her sophomore year of college, she was floating, frozen in time, as she watched basketball pass her by. She was in the transfer portal after leaving Cal, fading from the Sacramento Bee's Player of the Decade to a ghost with no home, fighting against all odds to get into Harvard because her brother Mason was there.
That year, grinding out units in community college, she needed to fill a science elective. She didn't want to take biochemistry. Obviously. She settled on astronomy. She figured it was related to astrology. “It's probably super easy,” she thought.
Instead, she found herself scribbling out complex equations, trying to determine exact points in the sky the sun rose thousands of years ago while staying up until the sun rose. She was back living at home in Folsom, loneliness her best friend, her sheer will bending to the thought that this might not even be worth it.
“This class,” she remembered thinking, “is going to be the death of me.”
Four years later, the Harvard graduate stood at the center of a storm in Las Vegas, red-and-gold confetti streaming from the rafters as the trumpets of USC's fight song reverberated. Coach Lindsay Gottlieb wrapped an arm around her neck, the two sharing a hug after Forbes' 26-point performance led USC over Stanford, rightly named the Pac-12 Tournament MVP.
In the midst of jubilation, Forbes found her father Sterling.
“I finally won something!” she told him,