Winkin led the University of Maine Black Bears baseball team to six College World Series berths in an 11-year span.
[5] Winkin attended Duke University, where he played baseball for head coach Jack Coombs as a 5-foot 6-inch left-handed hitting center fielder.
[6] Following graduation Winkin joined the U.S. Navy as an ensign, spending 56 months at sea in the Pacific theatre and rising to the rank of lieutenant commander.
He was hired for a broadcasting position with the New York Yankees, where he hosted the first pre-game baseball TV show in the nation alongside Mel Allen and Curt Gowdy.
Winkin became friends with Joe DiMaggio,[3] and he chose to wear jersey #5 at each of his college coaching stints in honor of the Yankee legend.
Whitmore compiled a 637–341 record and a .651 winning percentage over his 40-year career, and retired in March 2011 with the seventh-highest all-time victory total in NCAA Division III men's basketball.
His arrival spawned an era of great success for the Black Bears that included six College World Series appearances and a third-place finish.
Winkin's teams, composed largely of players from Maine and the other five New England states, proved to be formidable competition for major southern and western universities that had substantially larger budgets and fielded superior talent.
Maine's success on the national stage was even more surprising given the state's long winters that often resulted in snow-covered ground well into April and muddy fields in May.
Maine, like other northern schools, would head south early in the season, playing multiple weeks worth of games on the road against top-caliber teams.
Notable players on the team included future major leaguers Kevin Buckley, Joe Johnson and Bill Swift.
Johnson led the Bears back to the winner's column with a 6–0 shutout over Cal State-Fullerton, and Maine reached the final three with an 8–5 win over Stanford and John Elway.
Maine stunned the Hurricanes early, knocking out starter Rob Souza with three runs, but reliever Eddie Escribano silenced the Bears' bats the rest of the way.
Barry Larkin had helped give Michigan a 6–2 lead with a pair of doubles in the opener, but the Black Bears made a spirited comeback with three runs in the bottom of the eighth inning.
After losing 11 straight games to the Hurricanes, Winkin's Bears had finally beaten them by sweeping a two-game regular season series played earlier in the year on Maine's home field in Orono.
However Maine suffered a pair of embarrassing defeats in the ECAC North Playoffs, losing to La Salle (10–2) and Long Island (4–1).
The Bears arrived at the CWS sporting a 41–21 record under Winkin, led by future big leaguers Mike Bordick and Jeff Plympton.
Plympton was joined in the Black Bears pitching rotation by Scott Morse, Steve Loubier and Dale Plummer, and all four would ultimately be drafted by major league clubs.
Behind the ace stuff of Morse and the booming bat of catcher Bill Reynolds, Maine built a 7–0 lead and still held a 7–1 margin in the bottom of the eighth inning.
Maine out-hit LSU 11 to 8, but the Tigers turned four double plays to quash any potential rallies and hang on for an 8–4 win that eliminated the Black Bears.
Maine would field other strong teams during Winkin's tenure, but changes in NCAA tournament seeding procedures helped prevent the Bears from earning another trip to Omaha.
This virtually assured that all eight College World Series slots would be filled by the traditional southern and western power schools from warm weather climates.
Winkin became head coach of the Eagles in November 2003 after Kolasinski departed to take a similar position at Siena Heights University.
On March 12, 2006, the 86-year-old Winkin became the 44th collegiate baseball coach to reach 1,000 career victories when Husson defeated Drew University 6–3 in Tampa, Florida.