Forsyth Tech names Eli McLean assistant men's basketball coach

Forsyth Tech added Eli McLean as an assistant men’s basketball coach on July 30, giving head coach Lucas Hunter another hand as the Trailblazers shaped their 2026-27 roster. The hire landed in late summer, when junior-college staffs are usually sorting workouts, film work, recruiting calls and the final pieces of a lineup that can change quickly from one month to the next.

Forsyth Tech Athletics put the move across its channels with the line, “Welcome to the family, Coach! We are excited to announce Eli McLean joining the men's basketball staff as an assistant coach.” The same message ran on X, Instagram and Facebook, a sign the program wanted the addition in front of recruits and returners before the fall semester tightened the calendar.

McLean joins a bench that already listed Travis Holcomb-Faye and Daniel Morgan on Forsyth Tech’s men’s basketball coaches page, alongside Hunter as head coach. For a program that introduced men’s basketball as a new athletic program for the 2025-26 school year, the extra staff voice matters. At the NJCAA level, assistants often handle much of the daily work that turns an open roster into a functioning team, from player development and film breakdown to scouting reports and recruiting.

That kind of support is especially valuable in junior college basketball, where roster turnover can be fast and late additions can reshape a season. A late-July hire gives Forsyth Tech another recruiter and organizer as it moves deeper into offseason preparation for the 2026-27 campaign, with incoming players, returners and staff all needing to get aligned before classes start.

The timing also fits a program trying to build more than a lineup. Forsyth Tech’s news page listed the Trailblazers’ volleyball and men’s basketball teams earning NJCAA All-Academic Team honors on July 31, one day after the McLean announcement. In Winston-Salem, that puts the men’s basketball staff in a position where recruiting, retention and classroom standards are now part of the same build.