Alexander M. Compton (born March 16, 1974) is a Filipino-born American retired basketball player and coach. He also served as the head coach of the Alaska Aces of the Philippine Basketball Association. Early life and college career Born in Makati in the Philippines, Compton and his family spent a year in northeastern Thailand when he was ten years old. His parents, both Southeast Asian Studies scholars, were researchers there. Compton moved to Madison from upstate New York in 1988, when his parents began working at the University of Wisconsin. He was a starting guard on the 1992 Madison West High School basketball squad. There he helped lead the school's only state championship team since 1945. After high school, he played for St. Joseph's University and Cornell University. Although Compton dreamed of playing in a foreign league, he had no clue how to get into one until his junior year at Cornell. When a coach heard that he was born in the Philippines, he told Compton that he could play on a team in the Philippine Basketball Association. He found an agent, who arranged for him to join a team in July 1997, after graduation. Playing career Compton played four seasons in the defunct Metropolitan Basketball Association with the Manila Metrostars and the Batangas Blades. He won the 1999 MBA Most Valuable Player award when the Metrostars won the national title, and won another championship with the Blades in 2001. By the time the MBA folded in 2002, Compton was a fixture in Philippine basketball and fully assimilated into the culture. However, he still could not play in the PBA due to the league's eligibility rules, which do not allow naturalized Filipino citizens to play. Instead, he appeared on television as a basketball analyst, but was finally allowed to play for a short period of time for the Welcoat Dragons in the PBA. Compton also got an exception from the Philippine Basketball League. He played for the Sunkist-UST Tigers and the Montaña Pawnshop Jewels from 2003 to 2005. He led the Jewels to its only PBL crown in the 2005 PBL Open Championship. Coaching career Being an assistant In the 2006–07 PBA Philippine Cup, Compton was hired as one of the assistant coaches of the Dragons before being allowed by the PBA to play as the team's second import for the 2007 and 2008 PBA Fiesta Conference, his only PBA appearance