Farewell, Coach Tex Winter

Tex Winter leaves behind a legacy of innovation, wisdom and game-changing thought. Typically counter-cultural, he was not the typical hard-nosed, drill sergeant of his day. He showed people the benefit of what he was trying to teach. He stood up to giants of the game, and made them indelibly greater. Good enough never was for Coach. He also changed Philippine basketball forever. 

After applying for a job at the sales office of Converse in the 1920’s, former high school basketball player Chuck Taylor became the fitness consultant of the US military. GIs were soon doing calisthenics while wearing Chuck Taylor sneakers that were the “official” sneaker of the US Armed Forces. At a Naval facility in Glenview, Illinois, Taylor became the commanding officer of a young pole-vaulter who became his starting point guard. The young fellow was named Morice Frederick Winter. Morice hailed from Wellington, Texas. Hence his nickname, “Tex”.

Winter had attended Compton Community College in Los Angeles and became a renowned pole-vaulter and basketball player, and earned a scholarship to Oregon State University, where he was still on both the track and basketball teams. He would have made the Olympics, if not for the annoying interruption called WWII.

In 1955, Winter put out a little red book - detailing a system he called the triple-post offense. It basically found a way for teams to find opportunities within the flow of the game. Thirty years later, Coach Tex joined the Chicago Bulls as an assistant coach. Two years later - in 1987 - Phil Jackson joined the Bulls. Two years after that, the Zen Master was promoted to head coach, and got permission to try the triangle.

From many accounts, Coach Tex was very frugal, having woken up to the struggles of the Great Depression. It’s been said that when the Chicago Bulls traveled, he would save up all the little soaps and shampoos from their hotels. He also had quite a collection of shoeboxes from all the new Nikes that Michael Jordan would get each game.

Around the time that Jackson joined the Bulls, Alaska Milk entered the Philippine Basketball Association. A young high school coach named Tim Cone noticed that the Bulls were doing something different. But back then, the only way to watch the NBA was by catching the signal of FEN, Far East Network, out of Clark Airbase about 100 kilometers away. Tim’s father used to climb to the roof of their house to turn their old aerial TV antenna to the right direction. Imagine Tim yelling out at his window in the early morning during typhoon season. 

After he and Jackson moved to the Lakers, Winter visited the Philippines. He was impressed with the Alaska Aces, and said they were more advanced with the triangle than the Lakers were. And the Lakers had won their first NBA title with Jackson, Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal that year. It was high praise for Cone, who found a friend and mentor in Winter.

Using the triangle, Cone has become the most successful basketball coach in the Philippines, pro or amateur. He is also the only coach to have swept all three Philippine Basketball Association championships in a season with two different franchises. Early in 2017, The New Yorker Magazine ran a feature on Tim and his latest team, league darling Barangay Ginebra Gin Kings, as he is likely the only remaining pro coach still competing - and winning - using some form of the triangle offense.

Inevitably, the triangle offense will vanish. It simply takes too much time to teach. And in the pro game, the emphasis is winning immediately. Still, it will be impossible to forget the little coach with the little book who convinced basketball immortals that there is no “I” in team.

Thanks, Coach Tex.