USWNT, Morgan take home top honors at ESPYS

Through Tragedy, Oregon State's Tres Tinkle Worked To Find Common Ground With Father Amid Lost Season

CORVALLIS -- Anger boiled inside Tres Tinkle, his mind racing. He wanted to break anything in sight.

He sat next to his mother, Lisa, inside her Audi Q7 parked outside Gill Coliseum. Though Oregon State's tipoff loomed in less than two hours on this crisp, late November night, Tinkle would not be playing. A hard, black cast enveloped his right wrist, forearm and elbow, all the way up to his biceps.

His mother told him he could let his guard down. He did not need to bottle it up. Tears and a resounding yell soon followed.

Why me? Why does this happen?

For the first time since he immersed himself in basketball, Tres Tinkle spoke of a life without the sport.

"I just told her there's no point for me to keep playing if I'm always going to get hurt," he said. "I couldn't understand why things were happening to me."

Only three nights before, the Oregon State sophomore forward took the floor and went through a personalized handshake and embrace with Wayne Tinkle, his father and coach. The younger Tinkle was focused on leading a youthful team back to the postseason.

He never suited up for another game this season.

Oregon State's 67-62 loss to California on Wednesday marked the end of a season as challenging as anyone on the roster or staff has experienced. It may have been toughest on Tres, who battled back from seven months of rehabbing a broken foot only to see his season virtually wiped away by a broken right wrist.

The same wrist once held a constant reminder of lessons learned from a friend lost two years ago, lessons that helped push him closer to his father as they navigated the dynamic between player and coach. And after emerging from his lowest moment, when he felt like leaving it all behind, he again leaned on the perspective wrapped around his wrist.

* * *

External expectations were bound to follow Tres Tinkle wherever he stepped on a basketball court.

While his father and mother both excelled in the 1980s as players at the University of Montana, he also lived in the shadows of his older sisters -- Joslyn and Elle -- who won a state title together and earned Division I basketball scholarships.

He followed their path to Big Sky High School in Missoula, but arrived amid a coaching transition. Tinkle wanted to play Division I basketball and said the environment did not suit that goal. He transferred to Hellgate High School, where his mother worked and his family knew the coach, Jeff Hays.

While strong in his conviction to transfer, Tinkle still had nerves about the midyear transition. But he soon found a fast friend in teammate Kole Swartz.

Swartz was a second-team all-state defensive lineman for a winless football team as a senior.

Once known to his classmates as an imposing, yet quiet figure who rarely smiled, Swartz was named "most intimidating" in his senior high school yearbook. But to a core group of friends that grew to include Tinkle, the muscular 6-foot-5 Swartz stood out for his generosity and loyalty.

One grade ahead of Tinkle, Swartz instantly eased the transition with lunch invitations and a burly arm around his shoulder. When Tinkle broke his collarbone over the summer, Swartz drove 30 minutes to hand deliver him a get-well card and a Butterfinger, his favorite candy bar.

"He was just a friendly giant," Tres Tinkle said.

Tinkle and Swartz played together on junior varsity their first year together and found common ground in their athleticism and competitive fire. While the basketball team found quick success once Tinkle moved to the varsity roster as a sophomore, Swartz's biggest passion was football. And Hellgate's team ranked among the worst in the state.

Swartz would often become despondent after football losses. At times, his father would tell the tight end and defensive lineman he needed to rein back his emotions until arriving in the locker room.

So while his goal remained to earn a football scholarship, the hyper-competitive Swartz embraced life as a role player on the basketball team, putting in grunt work on a winning team.

Tres Tinkle emerged as one of the state's best players as a sophomore and his move to Hellgate was not without controversy. Recruiting accusations swirled. He expected chants like "sisters are better" or "daddy's boy" as the son of the University of Montana's men's basketball coach.

But against his old school, "traitor" emerged. Students he once considered close friends participated. Taunts were not always confined to the gym. He heard insults shouted out windows and at football games he attended.

"There were times where it got pretty upsetting," he said. "You'd have 55- to 60-year-old adults calling me a traitor, saying how terrible of a person I am. Close. Twenty feet away."

Back on the court, Tinkle used the taunts as motivation. He also had Swartz, the team enforcer, on his side. If Tinkle received a hard foul deemed too hard, Swartz was the first player in to deliver a message, using his strength to set bone-rattling screens.

"Kole was the one guy that I knew was my kind of guy," Wayne Tinkle said. "He was a foxhole, in-the-trenches kind of kid. Nothing was ever handed to him."

Hellgate won a state title Tinkle's sophomore year and targeted going back-to-back. The team excelled the following season but lost in the state title game. Devastated by the loss, Tinkle found his family to cope with the defeat. Swartz was the next person he saw. Tearing up, they shared one last hug on the basketball court.

Days later, Swartz opened up to his father about the loss.

"This town, this community expects him to be perfect all the time," Sean Swartz recalled his son saying. "I feel bad that we didn't get it for Tres."

When Swartz signed his national letter of intent to play football at Montana, Wayne Tinkle told him he had an open weekly invitation to come by his office and check in. Three months later, Oregon State hired Tinkle to be its men's basketball coach.

Tres Tinkle elected to stay in Missoula for his senior year after his father's departure and lived in the basement bedroom of his coach's parents' split-level ranch house. Hellgate rolled through the regular season, losing one game by one point before heading into the state tournament.

During one of Tres Tinkle's final home games, Swartz and his girlfriend arrived at a Hellgate basketball game. He had finished his redshirt season at Montana and neared his first active season of college football, wearing a big smile as he finally closed on his goal.

"He kind of had that attitude he was the man," he said. "He really was."

Tres Tinkle and Kole Swartz hug after losing in the state championship, their final game together. Swartz nearly did not play as a senior, hoping to secure a football scholarship, but was swayed in part by conversations with Tres and Wayne Tinkle.

***

Tres Tinkle has long struggled with a fear of death.

During his childhood, he would wake up in the middle of the night and check on family members for fear that he may have lost his parents or siblings.

"Automatically, whenever someone tells me something, I always think the worst," Tres Tinkle said.

That fear was the backdrop for a pivotal moment in his friendship with Swartz during his sophomore year of high school.

"I know it meant more than anything for him to get an offer from the Grizz," said Brady Henthorn, a former basketball teammate of Kole Swartz and Tres Tinkle.

Within a week after the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, rumors spread throughout Hellgate that a shooter would emerge and specifically target the basketball team. Security increased and the principal met with the team to reassure everyone that the school was safe.

Tinkle revealed his fear to teammates. As he opened up, he heard snickers. Soon after, Swartz was there with his arm around him.

"He just told me, 'You can't fear anything,'" Tinkle recalled. "'You've just got to love everything. There's a bigger plan, a bigger picture.'... He said, 'If you live in fear, you're going to live a bad life.'"

On March 14, 2015, a frustrated Tinkle rode the team bus from Butte to Missoula. Now a senior, his team was shockingly upset in the state quarterfinals two days earlier. A third-place finish did not erase the sting. Ninety minutes into the drive home, he saw police cars outside of Clinton, Montana, Swartz's hometown.

Still upset over how his high school career ended, Tinkle emerged from the basement to eat breakfast Sunday morning and saw Hellgate coach Eric Hays in the kitchen, alongside Hays' parents, with news about Swartz.

As was his nature, Tinkle expected to hear the worst. This time, truth matched his intuition.

Kole was dead.

Tinkle later learned the police cars he saw were unrelated. It had not been until 3 a.M. At a house party that Swartz handled a rifle that accidently discharged. He died at the scene of a single gunshot wound, according to the Missoulian. He was 19.

Tinkle sat in shock before tears flowed. With no family in town, he drove for hours through sobs with memories of his friend flooding his brain and eventually settled at the Tinkles' unsold and virtually empty Missoula home. His world shaken, he was alone.

Four days later, Tres was a pallbearer at Swartz's memorial service at Washington-Grizzly Stadium, where nearly 1,500 people attended.

The loss devastated Swartz's family. They rarely ventured out after their son's death, keeping a low profile while starting to process their grief.

But Sean Swartz and his daughter, Emma, made an exception to attend Tinkle's graduation party. Sean Swartz briefly spoke to Wayne Tinkle, who greeted him with a hug and a memorable message.

"He said, 'You'll never know how much he meant to my son,'" Sean Swartz said.

***

Early in grade school, Tres Tinkle shied away from his parents' public affection.

While his sisters embraced hugs from their parents, he let it be known he would not tolerate the same from his father in front of his friends. But as Tres grew older and more committed to basketball, he began to dream of one day playing for his father.

On the same day Wayne and Lisa Tinkle watched their daughter Elle play for Gonzaga in the NCAA Tournament at Gill Coliseum, Tres Tinkle was a pallbearer at Swartz's funeral.

Wayne Tinkle shared the same dream, but also knew he needed to depersonalize part of the dynamic with his son during their tenure together at Oregon State. So before this season, when Tres approached his father about having their own pregame handshake, his coach declined. He did not want to create any impression that they were separating from the rest of the team.

The decline took Tres aback.

Early in his freshman season one year earlier, he took his father's tough coaching personally. He struggled on the court while trying to find the line between dad and coach. He avoided his father away from the court, even at the family home in nearby Philomath.

"He'd say, 'Why do you only come over when I'm gone?'" Tres Tinkle recalled. "I'd be like, 'Because I don't want to see you.'"

The Tinkles sought advice from Creighton coach Greg McDermott and his son, NBA forward Doug, who shared the player-coach dynamic from 2010-14 as the younger McDermott became national player of the year and fifth on the all-time NCAA scoring list. They were relieved to learn their struggles sounded familiar to the McDermotts.

Wayne Tinkle knew their time together at Oregon State would require a necessary void in their relationship to help get his son toward his team and personal goals, which include an NBA career.

Yet the dynamic still presented challenges.

Wayne Tinkle now says he likely should have moved Tres into the starting lineup earlier during the 2015-16 season. He hesitated, wondering what dynamic the move would cause when his freshman son replaced a senior he did not recruit. His son thrived after the move and the Beavers reached their first NCAA Tournament since 1990, even after Tres broke his foot.

Wayne Tinkle said he was intentionally hard on Tres Tinkle last season and that senior Gary Payton II, no stranger to father-son dynamics, even told him take it easier on the freshman.

The relationship between father and son improved after a challenging start, yet has still been marked by frustrating moments. Tres Tinkle grew annoyed when Wayne Tinkle warned him not to push his rehab too hard during the summer. He has struggled with repeated challenges from his father while succeeding academically and on the court.

"I think he still treats me like I'm this eighth grader that doesn't listen," Tres Tinkle said. "I listen to everything, but there might be one thing that I don't necessarily agree with, and he acts like it's 100 things."

Tres Tinkle acknowledged he still has a lot to learn. He said his father's coaching has made him tougher and mutual trust has grown. Yet he still wanted the handshake, a gesture he tied to a simple message that showed a stark change from his childhood.

You can't be afraid of being my dad.

His father agreed and their pregame routine was born this season.

"I had to open up my blinders a little bit and say it's not that he's trying to draw attention and do this big fancy deal," Wayne Tinkle said. "It's father and son about to take the court together and something that we can keep as a memory together moving forward."

Neither father nor son expects a completely smooth ride over the next few years. But each has made concessions, sharing laughs representing a strengthened relationship even as it goes through periods of aggravation.

"It's something that you can't take for granted because you don't know what could happen," Tres Tinkle said. "I think seeing that with Kole changed my perspective."

***

The Swartz family has created several dozen maroon bracelets featuring Kole's name in the nearly two years since his death. Tres Tinkle wore his original on his right wrist so frequently that much of its text faded away.

Unable to wear it on his wrist in games due to uniform rules, he started a pregame routine at his locker, taking the bracelet off and kissing it before moving it to his right ankle.

Oregon State top scorers Tres Tinkle (left) and Stephen Thompson Jr. Only played together in their team's season opener due to injury during a five-win season.

He has stayed in touch with the Swartz family, usually through texts with Kole's younger sister Emma, now a high school senior. Still, Sean Swartz was floored to learn of the tribute. During the past two years, he has learned that the loss of a child is not a wound time can heal.

There is daily pain, but tributes like Tinkle's bring temporary focus away from the family's loss.

"As a parent, you want your kid to make an impact and you want it to be positive," Sean Swartz said. "When you start hearing that stuff, you start to get a glimpse into what he means to him."

The bracelet settled into its new place on Tres Tinkle's left arm in his mother's car outside Gill Coliseum that November night. Without him, the Beavers won only two more games against Division I opponents, and he saw pain in his father, who watched his son and best player suffer with each setback.

"It hurts me to see him put everything into it and not getting the results we want," Tres Tinkle said. "That makes me more motivated to want to get him what he deserves and give this team an opportunity to do some spectacular things."

Tres Tinkle (3), seen in 2016 wearing his Swartz tribute bracelet on his right ankle, expects to be cleared for a full return later this month.

During his outburst in the car, Tres Tinkle expected the worst and questioned his desire to continue to play. Utilizing advice for his mother and Swartz, he moved past the low point.

Tres Tinkle is now out of his cast. He will be eligible to apply for a medical redshirt this offseason to get back the season taken away by injury.

Hesitance to display public affection long gone, his wristband will be back on his ankle before his pregame handshake and hug with his father. And staying with his routine, Tinkle will cross himself, pound his chest three times, knock on the floor and blow a kiss for loved ones.

He'll look to the sky and, like Swartz told him, play without fear.

"I know he's protecting me."

-- Danny Moran

dmoran@oregonian.Com

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Tres Tinkle, Son Of Oregon State Coach Wayne Tinkle, Still Deciding On Relocating To Oregon (video)

Tres Tinkle (right) looks to rebound during the Rose City Showcase. (Mike Richman/The Oregonian)

Like many Division I basketball recruits, Tres Tinkle has major decisions to make during his junior year summer.

He'll have to decided what colleges to visit on recruiting trips, what skills camps he'll attend and, above all else, what state he will live in when high school starts in the fall.

After Tres' father Wayne Tinkle was hired by Oregon State to be the new men's basketball coach, the 6-foot-7 junior wing had to consider whether he'll finish out his high school career in Missoula or move with his dad to Oregon and play his final high school season in Corvallis.

Tres, who goes to Hellgate High School in Missoula, Montana, said he's still deciding if he'll even move to Oregon and if he does whether he'll attend Corvallis or Crescent Valley High School. He plans to live in Corvallis over the summer and make a decision about his potential new home and new school towards the end of July.

He's already been in contact with Joe Casey, son of OSU baseball coach Pat Casey, about the possibility of joining Joe at Crescent Valley. Tres admitted that students from both Corvallis-area high schools have reached out to him on social media in attempts to sway him towards their school.

Over the weekend, Tres was in Portland for the Rose City Showcase AAU basketball tournament with his Anthony Davis Select club team and showed why he'd be a major addition to any Oregon high school basketball program. The smooth lefty wing has the length, shooting touch and basketball IQ to be an all-state level player if he moves to Oregon.

In addition to being the hottest free agent in Oregon high school basketball, Tres is drawing interest from Division I college programs. Stanford, California, USC, Utah, Arizona State, Colorado, Gonzaga, Boise State, Vanderbilt, Creighton and Notre Dame are all recruiting Tres, who said he has strongly considered joining his father at Oregon State. For now, Tres is happy to keep his recruitment open and let the process play itself out before he makes his decision during the early signing period in November.

"[Schools] asked as soon as my dad got the Pac-12 job if I'm going to play for him now since it's on a bigger stage, but I told them I'm still open," Tres said after scoring a game-high 25 points in his first game at the Rose City Showcase on Friday. "I told them, I was up front with them, I said that it stands out to me a lot more, but I still want to go through the recruiting process because he'll support me wherever that is."

In the video above, Tinkle discusses the changes in his recruitment since his dad was hired away from Montana and how he's approaching the summer both on and off the basketball court.

-- Mike Richman@mikegrich

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Beavers Have Lofty Goals In Tres Tinkle's Last Season

Wayne and Tres Tinkle are looking to make their last father-and-son season at Oregon State memorable.

Tres Tinkle, the son of head coach Wayne Tinkle, is a senior this year. He considered leaving for the NBA in the offseason but ultimately decided to return to the Beavers. That means he'll have one more chance to do something with his dad that Oregon State hasn't managed since his first year: Make the NCAA Tournament.

But first, a Pac-12 title is on Tres Tinkle's wish list.

"All that stuff is kind of why I came back," he said. "I think this is our best chance with this group of guys to do something like that."

Tinkle averaged 20.8 points, 8.1 rebounds and 3.8 assists last season, when the Beavers finished 18-13 overall and 10-8 in the Pac-12 — their best finish in the league since 1989-90. Oregon State fell to Colorado in the quarterfinals of the Pac-12 tournament to cap the season.

The younger Tinkle has moved beyond thinking he has to "prove it up" because he's the coach's kid, his dad said.

"The way he's approached his teammates and the way he's approached his leadership has shown great maturity," Wayne Tinkle said.

The Tinkles aren't the only family in the Oregon State program. Ethan Thompson, the son of assistant Stephen Thompson, is a junior this season. Older brother Stevie graduated last year.

Like Tres Tinkle, the younger Thompson also considered the draft.

"It's hard when you've got guys like, 'OK, now I'm going to test the waters,' and you worry about what that does to your locker room. But I thought both Ethan and Tres showed great maturity in that they still worked with their teams, when we met to work out, and then they did what they had to do on the side to prepare for that experience," Coach Tinkle said.

Tinkle and Thompson are joined on the roster by senior Kylor Kelley. Four freshmen and three junior college transfers are newcomers to the team. Among them is 7-foot-1 post Roman Silva out of San Bernardino College.

The Beavers were picked to finish seventh in the league in the Pac-12 preseason media poll. Rival Oregon was picked to finish first.

FAB FROSH

Freshman Jarod Lucas is already turning heads. The 6-foot-3 guard set 15 school records at Los Altos High School in Hacienda Heights, California, starting every game in four years. He set a CIF Southern Section record with 3,356 career points, which was the third-most points in state history.

"He can put it in the basket. We didn't shoot it particularly well last year, and he's one guy that we think brings that, and the surprise has been his toughness and his IQ to pick up our concepts on the defensive end, and so that more than just rolling him out there to make shots I think is going to give him an early shot," coach Tinkle said.

THE LAST DANCE

Tres Tinkle didn't play as a freshman when the Beavers last made the NCAA Tournament in 2016 because of a foot injury. The Beavers fell to VCU 75-67 in the opening round. Gary Payton II was a senior that year.

COMING BACK

While his son is moving on, Wayne Tinkle appears to be staying put. He signed a one-year contract extension in the offseason that keeps him at Oregon State through the 2022-23 season.

GELLING

The Beavers are playing a pair of exhibition games this season — against Carroll College and Warner Pacific — to help the new players integrate. Normally the team plays one exhibition and a closed scrimmage.

"We felt like the more opportunities to get our guys to be introduced, to play in front of a crowd, will help us get out of the gate when we're playing in earnest," Wayne Tinkle said.

SCHEDULE HIGHLIGHTS

The Beavers open the season on Nov. 5 against Cal State-Northridge. They'll face Iowa State at home on Nov. 9 before a game against Oklahoma at Portland's Moda Center on Nov. 12. They open the Pac-12 season on the road against Utah on Jan. 2.

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