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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 Finals with the Chicago Bulls in the 1990s and the Los Angeles Lakers in the 2000s. 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.
Winter had to work while in elementary school to help his family, one such job being to collect boxes for a local baker in exchange for day-old bread. 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. Winter worked on a Market garden when he first arrived in California, bringing overripe fruit home to the family.
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. Along with Phil Woolpert and Pete Newell, Winter was a ball boy for Loyola University. Both Woolpert and Newell would become Hall of Fame head coaches.
At USC, Winter was also on the track team, and was named an All-American as a pole vaulter.
In 1952, Winter began a two-year stint as head coach at Marquette University, becoming the youngest coach in major college basketball. In 1953, Winter returned to Kansas State as its head coach; at 31, still the youngest major college coach. ABC News (49): Former K-State basketball star dies at 72; February 22, 2007. accessed on October 2, 2007. Canada Basketball: Candidates for the 2007 Class of the FIBA Hall of Fame announced; May 25, 2007 accessed on October 2, 2007. Winter served as Kansas State's head coach for the following 15 years, posting a 261–118 (.689) record, though his record has also been reported as 262-117. 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). 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.
Winter was named UPI National Coach of the Year in 1958, 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. Junior center Bob Boozer was one of three Wildcats to be named a first-team All-American, along with teammates Jack Parr and Roy DeWitz who were also named All-Americans. Boozer, Parr and DeWitz were all named to the Midwest-Lawrence All-Regional NCCA team that year. Earlier in the season, on February 3, 1958, No. 4 ranked Kansas State defeated Wilt Chamberlain and the No. 2 ranked University of Kansas in double overtime, using a defensive scheme Winter devised to impede Chamberlain's offense.
K-State advanced to their fourth Final Four in 1964. Winter's Wildcats knocked off Texas Western and Wichita State to reach Municipal Auditorium in Kansas City, Missouri. Two-time Big Eight selection Willie Murrell averaged 25.3 points per game during the run, which ended in a 90–84 loss to eventual national champion UCLA. It was the first of UCLA's 9 NCAA championships over the next 10 years.
In 1962, Winter also wrote the book The Triple-Post Offense, about the triangle offense – the offense which he developed and utilized with such success at Kansas State. Following his leaving Kansas State, turning over the head coaching position to his assistant Cotton Fitzsimmons, 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 Winter as an assistant for one year 1983–84.
In 30 years as a college head coach, Winter compiled a career record of 453–334.
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.
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. Winter was also a consultant for the NBA champion 2008–09 Los Angeles Lakers team.
Winter had a bond with Bryant, helping Bryant understand the value to Bryant of playing within the team's system, and watching hours of film together. Jordan respected Winter because of Winter's only being satisfied if things were done correctly. Jordan learned a deal from Winter, finding him to be a teacher and tireless worker, with a focus on details and preparation.
He lived near Kansas State in Manhattan, Kansas with his Alzheimer's-stricken wife 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. He has two other sons, Russ and Chris.
Winter died on October 10, 2018, at the age of 96.
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.
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.
In 2016, the NBA established The Tex Winter Assistant Coach Lifetime Impact Award, presented annually to a storied assistant coach who 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."
On May 26, 2012, Winter was inducted into the Compton Community College Athletics Hall of Fame, under the category of Basketball.
| *1960–61 record reflects one win by forfeit over Colorado. |
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