This monday, it was announced that former Northwestern basketball head coach Tex Winter will be inducted to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. Winter, 89, was best known for teaching his triangle offense alongside Phil Jackson in the NBA. He coached the men’s basketball team at Northwestern for five seasons.
Winter was named head coach of the Wildcats in March of 1973. A letter written by then-president Daniel E. Budinger called Winter an “affable gentleman,” and Winter’s first season on the bench was the first season the Wildcats finished higher than last place in the Big Ten in three years.
Winter did struggle at Northwestern, however. While his previous coaching jobs had been extremely successful — including eight Big Eight conference championships and two Final Four appearances in 15 years as head coach at Kansas State University — Winter’s coaching record at Northwestern was less than stellar. “I came to Northwestern because it was a challenge,” Winter told the Chicago Sun-Times in March of 1978. “If I thought it was impossible, I wouldn’t have taken the job.”
The 1977-1978 season was Winter’s last in Evanston, and he left to coach at California State University, Long Beach. His five-year Northwestern coaching career ended with a record of 42-89. He became an assistant coach with the Chicago Bulls in 1985, and worked alongside Phil Jackson when Jackson assumed head coaching duties there in 1989.
Winter is known as the mastermind behind the triangle offense, which he used in his own coaching days and which Jackson has since employed with the Chicago Bulls and Los Angeles Lakers. Those teams, which featured Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant respectively, have won eleven total NBA championships. The offense is slow and has a sharp learning curve that discourages more teams from adopting it, but its lack of positional restraints allows players to fill a role specific to an area of the court instead of their designated position. (Phil Jackson and Tex Winter walk through the triangle offense in detail here.)
“Tex was one of the most gracious men in the game of basketball,” said Jim Phillips, Director of Athletics and Recreation at Northwestern. “Northwestern is thrilled about his induction into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame, an honor that is extremely well deserved. Tex will always be a cherished member of the Northwestern Family,” he said.
In 2009, Winter suffered a stroke that severely impaired his physical and speaking abilities. He was inaugurated into the College Basketball Hall of Fame in 2010, and has a career head coaching record of 486-235.