‘The Only Thing I Know is Hard Work’

“Have you ever been to a high school game in Indiana?” Anthony Winchester asks. It’s an innocent question posed by the Kansas State director of video operations. A grin wraps around his face. A rush of memories flood back. He’s humble. He doesn’t flaunt it. But he certainly lived it. He dominated it — 47 points as a senior in the 2001-02 season opener, 50 points against rival Scottsburg, and 55 points twice in a span of 14 days against Paoli High School and North Harrison High. Winchester, who turned 40 on May 15, is a 6-foot-4, 205-pounder who still looks like he could give Kansas State junior guard Cam Carter a game.

 

Winchester’s childhood home in Austin, Indiana, sat less than a football field away from the Austin High School Gymnasium, where he put on shows nightly to sellout crowds of 3,000. He had a key to the gym and walked to games, waving to his neighbors in a town of fewer than 5,000 residents. Austin High, which had about 300 students, didn’t have a football team. Fridays buzzed with anticipation for the Eagles on the hardwood. (“Small-town vibes,” Winchester says.) The stories of a stream of cars driving from town to town to support high school basketball? Accurate. Milan, a small town most famous for its 1954 state championship team, is 60 miles northeast, and was the birthplace of the movie “Hoosiers.” Fifty-five miles east of Austin is the birthplace of Larry Bird, West Baden Springs. Seventy miles northwest is Bloomington and Indiana University.  

 

“I don’t tell people I’m from Indiana,” he says. “I tell people I’m from Austin, Indiana.”

 

Winchester averaged 34.7 points per game as a senior and led Austin to the 2002 2A Final Four and Mid-Southern Conference Championship. He finished his career with 2,256 points.

 

He was runner-up for 2002 Indiana Mr. Basketball.

 

“Have you ever been to a high school game in Indiana?” he repeats. “It’s just different, the feeling is different, the crowds are great, and I don’t want to say that it matters a little bit more, but there’s a care factor there.”

 

Tony and Darla were 19 years old when Anthony was born. Although they remain friends to this day, they divorced when Anthony was 5. Anthony still remembers visiting his father, helping organize his father’s baseball card collection, and shooting soft, pillowy Nerf balls into a Nerf hoop that hung from a cabinet in his father’s trailer home.

 
“SWOOSH! SWOOSH!” 5-year-old Anthony shouted.

 

“No,” Tony corrected, “It’s ‘SWISH!’“

 

That’s Anthony’s first real basketball memory.

 

And, oh, the places the SWISH, SWISH took Anthony. He scored 1,732 points in his four-year career (2002-06) at Western Kentucky and was inducted into the Hilltoppers Hall of Fame in 2019. He was 2006 Sun Belt Player of the Year and an Honorable Mention All-American by the Associated Press. He played professionally for eight years for clubs in both Spain and Puerto Rico between 2006-08 and 2010-16.
 
It was while playing for Spain’s Club Melilla Baloncesto in 2006-07 that the public-address announcer shouted “Bang! Bang!” whenever deadly Winchester hit a bucket — paying homage to the Winchester rifle. Annnnthony Wiiiiinchesterrrrr, bang-bang!” Bang-bang was here to stay and it became Winchester’s signature.
 
If a K-State player aces a test — “bang-bang!” If a K-State player knocks down 20 free throws in a row in practice — “bang-bang!” Upsetting No. 6 Texas and No. 19 Baylor on the road in a span of four days? — “bang-bang!”  Being picked 10^th in the Big 12 Conference and advancing to the Elite Eight? Yes, that’s definitely — “bang-bang!”
 
But before any of the bang-bang, before any of the international travel, before the past uber-successful season at K-State, there was the 5-year-old boy with his whole life in front of him, the boy who came from a rough small town of 2.4 square miles riddled with drug abuse, and the boy who, by the grace of God and having supportive parents in Tony, Darla and stepmom Kim, grew up and left Austin as a local standout in search of more.
 
“It took me some time to realize there are more things out there,” he says. “Traveling overseas was huge for me because it gives you a different understanding of the world. You grow up in smalltown Indiana and you’re probably going to think like smalltown Indiana, right? There’s probably some truth to that. I was able to get out and I understand where I came from and I have a great appreciation for that, but I also knew there were probably bigger and better things that I could accomplish, you know?”
 
He found the bigger and better things. But it was a struggle. There were the two herniated discs in his back that prevented him from playing internationally for a couple years. He joined Western Kentucky, first as a graduate assistant and then as director of operations (2008-10), but he believed that he could still be an asset to a professional team. He phoned his agent, flew to a tryout camp in Las Vegas, and left with five offers from professional teams, eventually earning a spot in Spain’s 1st Division, ACB, which is known as the second-best professional league in the world behind the NBA. He still had the “bang-bang.”
 
Upon his basketball retirement, he spent 2018-19 at Loyola Marymount (graduate assistant), 2019-20 at Southern Miss (video coordinator), 2020-21 at Pacific (director of operations) and 2021-22 at Southern Miss (assistant coach).
 

K-State head coach Jerome Tang hired Winchester on his initial staff as his director of video operations on April 28, 2022 — a position that blossomed into so much more this past season.
 
“I wore a lot of hats, but when it came down to it,” he says, “the hat I wore the most came down to (on-court) basketball. Coach does a great job of – man, he’s open to ideas, and so when we have our meetings, everyone essentially has a voice, and we can toss ideas back and forth and see what sticks. As the year went on my duties grew a little bit more.”
 
The duties stretched to scouting, recruiting and player development. At the root was video coordinator. When senior Desi Sills wasn’t shooting the ball at a high clip early in the season, Winchester reviewed Sills’ game film throughout his career. He found Sills had a habit for leaning back when he shot the ball, and that the habit became increasingly prevalent as his career wore on. Sills corrected his form, which improved his confidence, and he went from shooting 38% early in the season to finishing with a career-high 44.9% shooting from the floor. Winchester watched film of K-State and film of opponents and routinely presented his findings and suggestions to the staff.
 
“In the office, there are a million things that happen every day, so it can be different day to day,” he says, “but the one thing that grew throughout the year was probably the influence I had on the basketball side of it. You’re trying to figure out anything that can give you an edge, whether it’s watching video of the opponent or video of yourself, and maybe you have a different idea that you could run on offense or maybe you do something differently on defense and you do a scouting report. There are a lot of different things that go on behind the scenes, and it’s hard to put a name to it exactly.
 
“The only thing I know is hard work. That’s all I know.”
 

Today, he sits in the nutrition room at the Ice Family Basketball Center, recounting the past season. He wears a purple T-shirt that says “WILDCATS” in white block letters across the chest and bears a gray Powercat.
 
“I don’t call what I do a job or call it work,” he says. “I call it a lifestyle. You have to live it every day. I go out to eat and have this on my chest and people say, ‘He coaches at K-State.’ People know. You can’t ever really turn that off. It isn’t 9 to 5. It’s a lifestyle. For me, it’s great, because all I’ve ever known is basketball.
 
“I’ve been here a year. You see how much people care. Like growing up in Austin, these people have a sense of pride in Manhappiness, of the EMAW life, of Wildcat Nation. There are certain things about being a K-Stater, they have that sense of pride. I think it bleeds into you once you’re here. It’s different than just a coaching job.”
 
One day, all the sudden, the boy from Austin was all grown up and found himself on the bench at Madison Square Garden for the Sweet Sixteen and Elite Eight rounds of the 2023 NCAA Tournament. Winchester’s girlfriend, parents, stepmother, brothers and their wives, and college buddies traveled to New York City. Everyone wanted to witness the K-State story. Everyone was EMAW.
 
“I remember against Michigan State, we’re on the bench, and it was almost like you were looking down on yourself, and you’re like, ‘Wow, I’m really here in this chair.’ You know?” he says “I’m going to be honest, before the season we didn’t know what to expect. I’d be lying if I said that any of us thought we’d be there. Then as the season wore on, we were like, ‘OK.’ What a neat experience.”
 

And then following the Wildcats’ loss to FAU in the Elite Eight came the flight back to Manhattan. The airline attendant announced over the intercom: “Please be advised there are a lot of people waiting for you in the airport.” And then came the arrival, and the cheers and applause from K-State fans who packed airport terminal and lobby. And then came the text the next day from Tang, the text that informed the staff that they were to bring their significant other and meet for dinner at Wine Dive in downtown Manhattan. Winchester ate chicken fettuccini alfredo. Together, the coaching staff celebrated the incredible season.
 
The turn-the-page time arrived shortly after. The hard work is already underway for the 2023-24 season.
 
“What would I tell my 5-year-old self?” he says. “I’d say never lose the joy of how you feel right now. You know? When you’re a little kid, you just want to have fun and want to enjoy things, right? Now you get older and things become hard – life is hard – but I’d tell him to never lose that sense of joy and that sense of being free and happy. You have to find that purpose, and for me that’s always been basketball. It’s what I grew up with and it’s what I know.
 
“It’s who I am.”
 
Bang-bang.