Have you ever seen and heard so much about a person that by the time you meet them, there’s no way that the actual person can live up to the legend you’ve created for them?  And then, when it finally does happen, you realize that you were selling them short the entire time?

This is Tex Winter.  You’ll remember him as the Los Angeles Lakers’ assistant coach, and if you can dig way back you’ll remember him as an assistant with the Bulls during their six titles.  If you’ve got a great memory, you’ll recall his time with the Kansas State Wildcats in the 50’s and 60’s.  But few remember his five years with the Long Beach State 49ers, in which “Tex” compiled a pedestrian 78-69 record, sharpening his revolutionary offense for its shot at the BigTime.  You could sum up Winter’s career by saying that he invented the Triangle Offense – truly one of basketball’s last great innovations nearly 50 years after its creation – but that would be selling him short.  Winter brought the Triangle to Long Beach State before unleashing it on the NBA to the tune of nine titles, and as you look into his 87-year-old eyes you realize that the man has forgotten more knowledge about the game of basketball than you will ever gain in your entire life.  The legendary mind sat down to talk with us before being honored at the home game against Fullerton.

How does it feel to come back to the Beach tonight and be honored?
Well, I’m appreciating the fact that they’re honoring me and some of my former players. I’m not sure how much I warrant it, but certainly some of the players should be recognized. We weren’t National Champs or anything, but certainly had a good basketball team.  We played a very competitive schedule, a little tougher than they seem to be playing in this day and age.

How do you remember your days coaching here?
Well, I talked to the squad for a while and I told them that the five years I was here, in my mind, was the most delightful time I’ve had coaching. I was back in Southern California, which is home for me.  I came out of the cold weather in Chicago at Northwestern, and I went to Compton Junior College, so I was back home.  I enjoyed recruiting the kind of players that we had, and still try to keep in touch with a lot of them.  Craig Hodges in particular, who of course played with the Chicago Bulls. I was President of the National Association of College Basketball Coaches my last year here, in 1983, and being President I had the chance to get Craig an invite to the NBA Pro League tryouts in Chicago.

That ended up being a good move.
The rest is history.  While he was here, ironically, we had the best three-point shooter in the world probably and they didn’t have a three-point line (laughs).  I’ve often said that had they had a three-point line then, with Craig in the lineup, we’d have won a lot more basketball games.

You also spent a lot of time at Kansas State.
Yeah, nineteen years.

Well, I’m also a Kansas boy too.
Oh yeah, whereabouts?

Wichita, but it counts.  I’ve kind of been following you around, because I lived in Chicago and then moved out here…
You been sneaking up on me?

Absolutely.  By the time you came to Long Beach, your offensive philosophy was pretty well-developed, right?
After all my years at Kansas State – nineteen years, four as an assistant and fifteen as a head coach – and I wrote the book Triple Threat Offense that was published in 1961, its been pretty much my, not invention necessarily but.. what am I trying to say…

Here, legendary 49er and 1972 Olympic team forward Ed Ratleff apologizes for interrupting and says hello to his former colleague.

Ratleff: You haven’t aged at all!
Winter: I’m an old man Ed.
Ratleff: I see you on TV all the time.
Winter: Yeah, you gotta look quick to see me.

They exchange well wishes and say goodbye.  Winter spots Craig Hodges across the room and waves hello with a huge smile.

How does it feel to run into some of your former players here?
I look forward to seeing them. I know Craig’s going to be here because he works with us with the Lakers. And I knew Ed Ratleff was going to be here. Ed was my assistant coach. He didn’t play for me but he was on my staff.

He’s probably the best 49er ever.
Well, certainly one of them.  They’ve had a lot of good ones, though.

Have you continued to develop the offense, and how has it changed?
Well you know, it evolves all the time. Phil [Jackson] had put in some of his wrinkles, tweaking it here and there. But basically our concepts, the principles of the offense have remained the same over the years. They don’t change.  What matters is not the system so much, it’s the execution of the skills necessary to make the system function – that’s really the key to it.  So we’ve always spent a lot of time on the fundamental skills, basic skills of the game.  

Is it hard to implement it when you come to a new place?  When you came to Long Beach, was it hard to put the offense in place?
I never felt like it took a lot of time. With some players it does, other players it doesn’t.  Some players never get it, and those are the ones you get rid of (laughs). No, my methodology is such that everything sort of works itself out.

Do you think the offense is better suited for the pros than college ball?
No, if you have time to teach it, I think it’s better suited for college.  They’re at the stage where they really need development, and work on their fundamental skills. If they can learn to execute the skills necessary to make it function, they can be reasonably successful with it. I think it’s a very sound offense, that’s the reason we’ve stuck to it all these years. I still preach that.

Do you think the offense will live on? There sure aren’t a lot of teams use it.
Well, they’ve bastardized it – that’s the way I put it. They use parts of it, but they don’t use the total system of play or philosophy of play. Because I don’t think they know how. If they’re going to be successful with it, you have to spend a lot more time on the drills necessary and sometimes I think – particularly in pro ball – coaches don’t feel like that’s necessary. And to an extent, it’s not. These players have so much natural ability, they more or less like to just run the screen and rolls, something very simple and forget the execution.

Do you see a lot of innovation in other offenses today?
Well, not really. Seems to me that an awful lot of them, in the NBA anyway and I notice it in the college games I’m watching, we’re all playing pretty much with the same thing. Spacing the floor and running a side screen and roll out of it or a top screen and roll out of it, that’s got to be the most common thing I see. They’ve become very stereotyped in my mind, that’s one reason I think we’ve had the kind of success we’ve had with the Triangle. It’s different. It’s not stereotyped. It’s continuity. We try to react to the defense a little bit more. You have to read the defense. Some players can do that a lot better than others.

Have you gotten to see the long beach state team this year?
Saw ‘em last week against Riverside.

What’d you think?
They’re a lot better than they played, they didn’t play well I don’t think. I think they’re a better team than Riverside, actually, but they didn’t show it that night.  Just like we didn’t show it the other night against Charlotte (laughs).