Tony Hinkle's Offensive System and Other Thoughts

Coach Paul D. Tony Hinkle served Butler University as head basketball, football, and baseball coach, and athletic director, over the course of six different decades. Most of his coaching success came as head basketball coach at Butler, where he coached from the 1926-27 season and ended the 1969-70 season (Coach Hinkle coached at Great Lakes Naval Training Center from 1942-45 where he was stationed during World War II.)

Among Coach Hinkle’s greatest accomplishments include the 1929 National Collegiate Championship, having his name put on Butler’s historic Fieldhouse, and being inducted into the Nasimith Basketball Hall of Fame. Coach Hinkle was extremely innovative, as well. One of his great contributions to the game was his idea of using the orange basketball.

The following thoughts on Coach Hinkle came from Howard Caldwell’s 1991 book “Tony Hinkle: Coach for All Seasons.”

“THE HINKLE SYSTEM” – Coach Hinkle’s Offensive System
- Constant movement between pairs of players on the floor
- Coach Hinkle worked out an array of 14 two-man exercises designed to block out defensive players; today they’re known as picks and screens
- Concentrated on getting good percentage shots, since most teams were bigger than Butler
- The offensive drill on the first day of practice with Hinkle was identical to the offensive drill on the final day of practice.
- Hinkle wanted habits so deeply ingrained in his players that they would respond to changing situations without thinking.

COACH HINKLE ON RECRUITING…
No matter how competitive the search for player prospects became, Butler’s coach never wanted a kid who had been talked into a commitment. He wanted the prospect to get a factual rundown of what Butler was all about…He was proud of the university’s academic reputation, a reputation that carried over into a strict interpretation of the rules as they pertained to athletes.

COACH HINKLE ON BEING SUCCESSFUL…
His basic approach was to remind everybody that success depended on the team as a unit, not on the individual. What better way to remind them of that concept than to use the word “kid”, a number, a hometown, or an abbreviated form of the name.