Fred "Tex" Winter
Inducted 1997
FRED “TEX” WINTER
1922 – 2018
Inducted – 1997
Kansas State basketball would have been much different without the influence of one of the school’s great coaches, Fred “Tex” Winter. In fact, the entire sport would have been played differently without him and the triple post offense he developed at K-State and later perfected as an assistant NBA coach. Winter took over the reigns of the KSU basketball program in 1953 after serving as the top assistant to Hall of Fame Coach, Jack Gardner. In 15 seasons at K-State, Winter coached the Wildcats to six NCAA tournament appearances, eight conference titles, and four Big Eight Tournament championships. His 262-117 won-lost record represents the highest winning percentage (69.1) in KSU history. His Wildcats reached the Final Four in 1958 and 1964. Winter is the only K-State coach associated with all four of the Wildcats’ NCAA Final Four appearances, having served as Gardner’s assistant in 1948 and ’51. He was named National Coach of the Year in 1959 when K-State finished the regular season as the nation’s number-one ranked team with a 14-0 conference record and 25-2 overall. K-State finished the season among the nation’s top-20 ten times in Winter’s 15 seasons there, winning over 20 games four different seasons. It was during his time at K-State that he developed the famous triple post (triangle) offense, which he used it during his college coaching ears and eventually wrote a book on the subject. In 1985, he took a position as an assistant coach for the Chicago Bulls, where was instrumental in implementing the triangle offense which resulted in nine NBA world titles for the Bulls and Lakers. Winter retired in 2004 after 57 consecutive seasons of coaching basketball. Born February 25, 1922 – Wellington, Texas. Graduated Huntington Park (CA) High School, 1940; University of Southern California, 1947.
Presented by Ernie Barrett and Jack Parr