Some of you may not know this, but Tex was the basketball coach when I was at K-State and he was a good one. We won a lot of games and although KU was still the king, everyone in the old Big 8 still had to go through us to get to the top. He won 8 Big 8 titles and took the Wildcats to the final four twice, in 1958 and 1964. Oklahoma State and Henry Iba also were a force to be reckoned with during those years in the old Big 8 conference.
Coach Winter died this fall at age 96 and was the innovator of the triple post offense or triangle offense. He was hired by the Bulls to install the triple post when Phil Jackson took over and went with Jackson to the Lakers. So basically Coach Tex Winter taught the triple post offense to Michael Jordan and won 9 NBA championships with that offense. But Jackson, Jordan and Kobe got the credit? Okay well that's an exaggeration but it makes an interesting story. It does take some talented and intelligent players to run it.
A true story is that local Courtland, Kansas farmer John "Johnny" Blackburn came back from a trip to K-State and told our coach Raymond "Stewie" Stewart about Winter's triple post offense. I think Winter wrote his book about the triple post around the same time. This was the winter of 1961-62.
Anyway Stewie and Johnny thought we were bright enough to run the triple post so we practiced, and practiced and practiced including the dreaded daily wind sprints. By the way Johnny Blackburn was in his late '30s then and could still whup any one of us on either end of the court. Practicing against him was like wrestling a pissed off bull. Many times I didn't get home until dark but we managed to put together a pretty good high school team the year I was a senior and ran our version of the triple post in about 70 percent of our games and won most of them, enough to win the Pike Trail League and the District tournament. We got beat in the Regional tournament and kept from going to state by a team from Bird City that played as tough a man defense as us and was as disciplined controlling the ball as us. The score was 34 to 32!
The triple post requires a lot of decision making and movement by the players and I know it was hard for Stewie to give up play calling control but he did it. Of course if we made a bad decision he let us have it with both barrels. It wasn't abuse back in those days...it was coaching! Ha!
Our version of the triple post included sophmore Kenny Henrickson (big dude) and my senior teammates Robert Carlgren and John Freed in constant motion, rotating in the post, setting pics getting each other open so cousin Kenny Russell and I could find an open player for the shot as we continuously moved in a semi-circular motion around the perimeter. If the defensive guards dropped off us too far to clog the middle then we took the shot.
Some teams required a three guard match up so sharp shooting sophmore Gene Macintosh would start instead of Henrickson. In those games Gene, Kenny and I would work the perimeter while Carlgren and Johnny Freed worked a double post. This was my favorite setup because I didn't have to handle the ball quite as much or make as many decisions or get my fanny chewed by Stewie as much. Ha!
I could go on but you get my drift, assuming you've read this far. Ha!
Have a great day!
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