推 mikehu:感人... 07/15 16:51
→ szuta:We love you, Tex. 07/15 17:55
希望 Tex Winter 的身體情況能夠早日好轉，
新球季開幕時希望他能健康的到場領取冠軍戒指。
http://tinyurl.com/nnjzqs
Lakers legend Tex Winter needs to be encircled with care
Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times
Lakers consultant Tex Winter, left, shown with radio personality Vic Jacobs,
won his 10th NBA championship ring last month, each one as Phil Jackson’s
offense architect and sideline conscience.
The inventor of the 'triangle' is recovering from a stroke and struggling to
adapt and re-learn things. Basketball helps his spirits.
Bill Plaschke
July 15, 2009
You never saw it. The Lakers never ran it. An 87-year-old stroke victim
conceived it.
But amid all the intricate designs concocted by the NBA champions during
their postseason run, perhaps no single play was more important.
It appeared not in the glitz of Staples Center, but in a quiet assisted
living apartment home in Wilsonville, Ore.
While the Lakers were celebrating their Finals victory over the Orlando
Magic, basketball consultant Tex Winter was fighting to speak the words
"Orlando" and "Magic."
Having suffering a stroke earlier in the playoffs, Winter could barely talk
or comprehend. It was difficult to write, difficult to gesture, one of the
greatest teachers in basketball history laboring to learn the basics of
living.
His team had won, but Winters was still fighting, the frustration growing
each day, until finally his son Chris had an idea.
"OK, Dad," Chris said, sticking a piece of paper in front of his father's
hand. . . . "Draw a play."
Tex looked down. He thought for a second. He slowly put pen to paper.
And there it was.
The triangle.
"Out of nowhere, there it was, the offense, drawn perfectly, completely
understandable, legible enough for the players to run it," Chris said. "I was
really surprised. And I wasn't surprised at all."
Yeah, Tex is still with us.
The guy who designed the offense that has led to four Lakers' NBA
championships may have disappeared, but he's not gone.
Tex Winter's calming, white-haired presence may never again be seen sitting
behind Phil Jackson on the Lakers' bench.
He may never again be able to speak without assistance or live without care.
His sons say he is battling boredom and depression while facing the most
difficult climb of his life.
But the force is still with us, one of the greatest coaches in basketball
history still trying to coach from a living room chair in an apartment he
shares with his Alzheimer's-stricken wife, Nancy.
"He's still a coach," said Russ, another of Winters' three sons. "It may not
always seem like it on the outside, but there's still a coach in there."
Take the first game Winter watched after suffering his stroke in late April.
He was essentially immobile in a chair in front of a television set, watching
the Lakers losing to the Houston Rockets, when son Chris ripped one of the
Lakers for not hustling.
Out of nowhere, the coach appeared.
"Get off his back, he's doing the best he can!" Winter shouted. "You know,
this game isn't as easy as it looks!"
It was one of the first complex sentences Winter had strung together since he
had been stricken. His sons have been shaking their heads about it ever since.
"He has always been a coach; he doesn't know how to do anything else, and I
guess that's how it's always going to be," Russ said.
Jackson wasn't the only one who won his 10th ring on that Sunday night in
Orlando, remember.
Winter also won his 10th, each one as Jackson's offense architect and
sideline conscience.
"He calmly called himself, 'the Insultant' rather than 'the Consultant,' "
Jackson told reporters earlier this summer.
It was Winter who was never afraid to challenge Kobe Bryant. It was Winter
who would stare down Jackson.
Ultimately, it was Winter who finally benched himself, requesting that he be
downgraded from assistant coach to consultant during recent years because of
health battles.
But he was still there for home games, still there for practices, still
around to needle and nudge and serve as a constant touchstone for the NBA's
most successful offense.
Imagine today's airline pilots being counseled by the Wright brothers. That
was Winter with the Lakers, living history, more amazing by the year.
"I remember giving him brochures on vacation spots, and wondering if he would
ever retire and travel, and once he even said he would," Russ said. "But then
the next year, he was back with the Lakers. Always, he was back with the
Lakers."
And the Lakers always had his back, employing him long after any other
organization would hand out regular paychecks to someone his age.
After Winter was stricken during the first-round series against the Utah
Jazz, some fans might have forgotten about him, but the Lakers never did.
Their team doctors helped direct the start of his care. Mitch Kupchak, the
Lakers' general manager, immediately offered all other team services. Several
members of the front office telephoned Winter even though he couldn't really
talk.
"The Lakers really are a family, we have seen every aspect of that," Chris
said. "They have been unbelievable in their care for my father."
The attention was needed, as Winter's new journey is a difficult one. Because
he had no other interests but basketball, his days are sometimes long and
tedious. Because it appears he will never coach basketball again, he is
constantly fighting depression.
"I wish I could tell you this was a totally upbeat story, but it's not, it's
tough," Russ said. "Sometimes my father feels like he's an old man who
doesn't have time to learn to talk again."
Basketball brings him back.
Winter brightened considerably when Jackson recently visited on his way to
his summer home in Montana. In typical Jackson fashion, it wasn't announced,
and none of Winter's sons were there, just Tex and Phil.
Then came the phone call from Kupchak that really charged up the coach, a
reminder that he had to get well soon so he could come to Los Angeles in
November and pick up his championship ring.
"He really seems eager to make that happen," said Brian, another son. "That's
something we're planning on."
The coach, it seems, just needs a little coaching. His family provided a
mailing address: 32100 SW French Prairie Road, Number 228, Wilsonville, Ore.,
97070.
After Tex Winter blessed our town with the triangle, perhaps it's time for us
to teach him about the full circle.
--
※ 發信站: 批踢踢實業坊(ptt.cc)
※ 編輯: spock2230 來自: 123.204.105.196 (07/15 16:44)