Everything about Gary Forbes hints
at vigor. The 6-foot, 7-inch basketball
player is 220 pounds of pure muscle
and goes head-to-head with some of
the biggest, most athletic guys on the
planet each week. He spends every
day on the court, running drills and
perfecting his shot so, come game
day, he and his team can take on the
toughest competition.
There’s little room for vulnerability
in the game, which is why Forbes didn’t
broadcast news of his type 1
diabetes when he was diagnosed at age
19 as a college sophomore. “At first I
tried to keep it to myself,” says the
26-year-old Toronto Raptor. “I just
didn’t want to look at it as a sickness. I
live a healthy lifestyle, and if you see me,
no one would know I have diabetes.”
With the help of his father, who
has lived with diabetes for more than
20 years, Forbes learned to manage
his diabetes while playing college
ball. By the time he graduated from
the University of Massachusetts,
Forbes had been named 2008
Player of the Year in the Atlantic 10
Conference and become the only
other player aside from NBA Hall of
Famer Julius “Dr. J” Erving to score
over 1,000 points in two seasons
at UMass.
heading abroad, where he played
for teams in countries such as the
Philippines, Italy, and Israel.
Though his dream had always
been to play in the NBA, Forbes rel-
ished his time as a pro player abroad.
“You know, I guess [2008] wasn’t the
right time,” he says. “Going overseas
and eating fresh foods and eating
healthier helped me gain maturity,
helped me with my game and my
body. My family, we have a never-
give-up attitude, and I’d say it worked
out for the best for me.”
His big break came two years later
when he was signed by the NBA’s
Denver Nuggets. (In December,
Forbes joined the Toronto Raptors.)
“When I made the team in Denver,
it was kind of surreal. I didn’t really
know what to expect or how to act,”
he says. “It was almost like a long
time coming.”
The Diabetes
Here’s what people see when they
look at Gary Forbes: an imposing
man who handles a basketball like
it’s an extension of his arm. Here’s
what they don’t see: blood glucose
checks in the locker room, insulin
injections at mealtime, and emergency glucose tablets tucked away
in a gym bag.
Not that Forbes is hiding his dia-
betes anymore. He now sees it as a part
of who he is as a player and hopes oth-
ers do, too. “I’ve learned to live with it
and deal with it, and I’ve been able to
play at a high level of basketball with
it,” he says. “I’ve always thought of it
as a manageable disease.”
After seven years with diabetes,
Forbes has the routine down. Whether
he’s prepping for a game or practice,
“pretty much the whole day I . . . do a
lot of carb counting so as not to raise
The Dream
Thousands of college and foreign
players compete for the chance to
be drafted to fill a very few slots on
NBA teams. Competition is cutthroat.
But when Forbes wasn’t drafted in
2008, he remained confident. He
rebounded and joined the NBA’s
Development League—a sort of
minor league for basketball—before
