Morice Fredrick "Tex" Winter (February 25, 1922 – October 10, 2018) was an American basketball coach and innovator of the triangle offense, an offensive system that became the dominant force in the National Basketball Association (NBA) and resulted in 11 NBA Championships with the Chicago Bulls in the 1990s and the Los Angeles Lakers in the 2000s.[1] He was a head coach in college basketball for 30 years before becoming an assistant coach in the NBA. He was an assistant to Phil Jackson on nine NBA championship teams with the Chicago Bulls and the Los Angeles Lakers. Winter was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2011. In 2016, the NBA created the annually presented Tex Winter Assistant Coach Lifetime Impact Award in his honor.
Early life
Winter was born on February 25, 1922,[2] near Wellington, Texas, (a fact which later provided him with his nickname when his family moved to California[3]) 15 minutes after twin sister Mona Francis.[4] He grew up in an unpainted shack just outside of Wellington, located in the Texas panhandle, during the Dust Bowl.[5] The Winter family moved to Lubbock, Texas, in 1929, where his mechanic father died of an infection, after being speared by a marlin while fishing, when Tex was nine or ten years old.[4][5]
Winter had to work while in elementary school to help his family, one such job was to collect boxes for a local baker in exchange for day-old bread.[citation needed] In 1936, Winter and his sister moved to Huntington Park, California, with their mother, who would work as a clothing store sales manager. His older football star brother Ernest remained in Texas to finish high school while his older sister Elizabeth had already married and moved to California first and encouraged them to move there.[4] Winter worked on a truck farm when he first arrived in California, bringing overripe fruit home to the family.[5]
While attending Huntington Park High School, the Loyola University of Los Angeles (now Loyola Marymount University) basketball team practiced at his high school. Winter carefully studied coach Jimmy Needles’s reverse action offense, which was an early template of the later triangle offense.[5] Along with Phil Woolpert and Pete Newell, Winter was a ball boy for Loyola University.[6] Both Woolpert and Newell would become Hall of Fame head coaches.[7][8]
After graduation from high school in 1940, Winter attended college at Compton Junior College for two years, where he became a renowned pole vaulter and earned a pole-vaulting scholarship to Oregon State University.[2][9] He was on the basketball and track teams at both schools.[9] As a pole vaulter, Winter competed against Bob Richards, a 1948 and 1952 Olympian.[6] He was considered a strong candidate for the US Olympic team in 1944, but the Olympics were cancelled by World War II.[9]
Winter met his wife Nancy at Oregon State.[5] Both of them entered the United States Navy in early 1943, with Winter going into fighter pilot training and his wife into WAVES.[4] After his pilot's wings were conferred he was assigned to fighter pilot duty in the Pacific. However, his orders were rescinded after his brother's plane was shot down, and Winter remained at Naval Air Station Glenview in Illinois for the duration of the war.[citation needed] After the war, he was assigned to NAS Corpus Christi as a test pilot for an experimental jet craft. While in the navy, Winter was a starting guard for his basketball team under the commanding officer Chuck Taylor.[10] He left the Navy with the rank of Ensign in 1946.[citation needed]
Winter returned to college after the war at the University of Southern California (1946-1947), where he learned the triangle offense from his coach Sam Barry,[citation needed] or as stated elsewhere, Winter learned the fundamentals of Barry's system from which Winter himself would devise the triangle offense.[3] The Naismith Hall of Fame has said the triangle offense evolved in part from Barry's center-opposite offense.[11] He was a basketball teammate of Bill Sharman, Alex Hannum, and Gene Rock, future professional basketball players.[12][3][2] Like Winter, Sharman and Hannum would go on to be Hall of Fame coaches,[13][14] though Winter, in a rarity, went in for his contributions as an assistant coach.[15]
At USC, Winter was also on the track team, and was named an All-American as a pole vaulter.[2]
College coaching career
After graduating college in 1947, Winter immediately entered the coaching profession as an assistant to Hall-of-FamerJack Gardner at Kansas State University, a position he held from 1947 to 1951.[16][17][18] It was as an assistant at Kansas State where he began to devise the triangle offense.[3] He was Garnder's assistant in 1948 and 1951 when the team went to the final four of the NCAA tournament.[19] He would work as a basketball coach for the next 61 years.
In 1952, Winter began a two-year stint as head coach at Marquette University, becoming the youngest coach in major college basketball.[10][5][20] In 1953, Winter returned to Kansas State as its head coach; at 31, still the youngest major college coach.[17][21][22] Winter served as Kansas State's head coach for the following 15 years, posting a 261–118 (.689) record,[3][20] though his record has also been reported as 262-117.[19][18] He still owns the record for most league titles (eight) in school history and twice led the Wildcats to the Final Four (1958 and 1964).[3][23][18] Winter guided K-State to postseason play seven times overall, including six trips to the NCAA Tournament, and boasts one of the highest winning percentages in K-State's history.[24][18]
Winter was named UPI National Coach of the Year in 1958,[18] after he led Kansas State to the Final Four by knocking off Oscar Robertson and second-ranked Cincinnati in an 83–80 double-overtime thriller.[25] Junior center Bob Boozer was one of three Wildcats to be named a first team All-America,[26] along with teammates Jack Parr[27] and Roy DeWitz who were also named All-Americans.[28] Boozer, Parr and DeWitz were all named to the Midwest-Lawrence All-Regional NCCA team that year.[29] Earlier in the season, on February 3, 1958, number 4 ranked Kansas State defeated Wilt Chamberlain and the number 2 ranked University of Kansas in double overtime, using a defensive scheme Winter devised to impede Chamberlain's offense.[30]
In 1962, Winter also wrote the book, entitled The Triple-Post Offense, on the triangle offense – the offense which he utilized with such success at Kansas State.[5] Following his leaving Kansas State to his assistant Cotton Fitzsimmons,[35] Winter also served as head coach at the University of Washington (1968–1971, where he was hired by then Athletic Director Joseph Kearney), Northwestern University (1973–1978), and Long Beach State. In 1982, LSU's Dale Brown, who Winter befriended when Brown was a high school coach, hired him as an assistant for one year 1983–84.[36][18] In 30 years as a college head coach, Winter compiled a career record of 453–334.[3]
Professional coaching
Winter in 2009
Winter was hired by Pete Newell as head coach of the Houston Rockets for two seasons, 1971–1973, posting a 51–78 (.395) record. Winter replaced his old USC teammate, Alex Hannum. He was fired and replaced by assistant coach Johnny Egan on January 21, 1973. The trading of Elvin Hayes to the Baltimore Bullets prior to the 1972–73 season and the Rockets' subsequent subpar performance were factors in his dismissal.[37][38]
In 1985, Winter started another chapter of his life after contemplating retirement, serving as an assistant coach with the Chicago Bulls, and teaching the triangle offense to Michael Jordan. He was hired to the position by General Manager Jerry Krause, an old friend he had met while at Kansas State. As an assistant to Phil Jackson, who took over as the Bulls' head coach in 1989, Winter and his ball-movement offense were an integral part of the Bulls' NBA championships in 1991, 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, and 1998.[39][18] Winter followed Jackson to the Los Angeles Lakers. Led by Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant, the Lakers won three championships using the triangle system in 2000, 2001, and 2002.[39] Winter was also a consultant for the NBA champion 2008–09 Los Angeles Lakers team.[40]
Winter had a great bond with Bryant, helping Bryant understand the value to Bryant of playing within the team's system, and watching hours of film together.[6] Jordan respected Winter because of Winter's only being satisfied if things were done correctly.[5] Jordan learned a great deal from Winter, finding him to be a great teacher and tireless worker, with a constant focus on details and preparation.[3]
Health and death
On April 25, 2009, Winter suffered a stroke in Manhattan, Kansas, while attending a Kansas State basketball reunion.[41]
He lived near Kansas State in Manhattan, Kansas with his Alzheimer's-stricken wife[42] and son Brian. He suffered from the after-effects of his 2009 stroke, including an uncooperative right side and nerve pain in his neck and shoulder.[43] He has two other sons, Russ and Chris.
Winter died on October 10, 2018, at the age of 96.[44]
In 2002, after the Lakers' third consecutive championship, the team made rings for the players and coaches honoring Winter. On the front of the jewel-encrusted ring was a design with several triangles, honoring Winter’s triangle offense.[17]
On his eighth time on the final ballot for the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame, it was announced on April 2, 2011, that Winter had been elected. He was formally inducted on August 12, with his Boston-based physicist son Chris giving a speech in his behalf.[49][11]
In 2016, the NBA established The Tex Winter Assistant Coach Lifetime Impact Award, presented annually to a storied assistant coach wo has consistently made a substantial impact over at least fifteen years. The award "honors the career of Hall of Famer Tex Winter who over an outstanding NBA coaching career set a standard of loyalty, integrity, competitive excellence and tireless promotion of NBA basketball."[48]
On May 26, 2012, Winter was inducted into the Compton Community College Athletics Hall of Fame, under the category of Basketball.[9]
National champion
Postseason invitational champion
Conference regular season champion
Conference regular season and conference tournament champion
Division regular season champion
Division regular season and conference tournament champion
Conference tournament champion
*1960–61 record reflects one win by forfeit over Colorado.
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