Tex Winter

Lore & Background

Winter was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2011. In 2016, the NBA Coaches Association created the annually presented Tex Winter Assistant Coach Lifetime Impact Award in his honor. In 2010, he was given the Chuck Daly Lifetime Achievement Award by the NBA Coaches Association. In 1998, Winter was awarded the John Bunn Award for lifetime achievement from the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame.

Winter was a head coach in college basketball for 30 years, including 15 years at Kansas State University, where he went to the NCAA Final Four twice (1958 and 1964), won eight conference titles, and had nearly a 70 percent winning percentage. In March 1958, he was voted the United Press college Coach of the Year. Winter was selected the Big Eight Coach of the Year at Kansas State three consecutive seasons (1957 to 1960), and again in his final season in the Big Eight (1967–68).

Winter has been inducted into the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame (2010), Kansas State Athletics Hall of Fame (1991), USC Athletics Hall of Fame (2003), PAC-12 Hall of Honor (2003), Kansas Sports Hall of Fame (1997), and Compton Community College Athletics Hall of Fame (2012). In 2003, Kansas State fans voted him the Kansas State basketball coach of the century.

Reader's Guide

Winter was born on February 25, 1922, near Wellington, Texas, 15 minutes after twin sister Mona Francis. He grew up in an unpainted shack just outside of Wellington during the Dust Bowl. The family moved to Lubbock, Texas in 1929. His father was a mechanic and died from an infection after being speared by a marlin while fishing when Winter was seven or eight.

His older brother Ernest became a father figure. Winter worked in elementary school to help feed his family. In 1936, he moved with his mother and twin sister to Huntington Park, California. His mother worked as a clothing store sales manager.

Winter worked on a truck farm upon arriving in California. His Texas birth and drawl led to his nickname "Tex". He played three years on Huntington Park High School's basketball team and was a ball boy for Loyola University, studying coach Jimmy Needles’s reverse action offense. Winter attended Compton Junior College and Oregon State University before joining the U.S. Navy during World War II.

After military service, he attended the University of Southern California. At Compton Junior College, he became a renowned pole vaulter and played guard on the basketball team. At Oregon State, he was on both the basketball and track and field teams, competing as a pole vaulter against Bob Richards. Winter was considered a strong candidate for the US Olympic Team in 1944, but the Olympics were cancelled by World War II.

He met his wife Nancy Bohnenkamp at Oregon State. Both entered the U.S. Navy in 1942 or early 1943. Winter went into fighter pilot training; his wife joined the WAVES. His brother Ernest was a Navy pilot and became the first pilot to walk out of China after his plane was shot down, receiving the Distinguished Flying Cross.

Winter's own pilot orders were rescinded after his brother's plane was shot down. Winter was stationed in Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Texas. He played basketball for Marquette University while a Navy cadet in Wisconsin, earning a varsity letter under coach W. S. "Bill" Chandler. He also played for Iowa Pre-Flight while assigned to NAS Ottumwa, and competed in the Drake Relays in late April 1944, tying for second in the pole vault.

After the war, he was assigned to NAS Corpus Christi as a test pilot for an experimental jet craft; four of eight test pilots died. He played basketball for the Navy in Corpus Christi.