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. He 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 teamed up with Mike Dammen to lead the school's only state championship team since 1945. Although he dreamed of playing in a foreign league, he had no clue how to get to 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 did 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 2002–2006. He led the Jewels to its only PBL crown in the 2005 PBL Open Championship.
Coaching career
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 as a player. He was elevated to the assistant head coaching position with the Rain or Shine Elasto Painters from 2006 to 2009. He then moved over to Powerade Tigers as assistant to Bo Perasol until its last conference in 2012. After the Powerade franchise was sold to GlobalPort, he became assistant to Luigi Trillo of Alaska. He helped the squad win the 2013 PBA Commissioner's Cup, their 14th title and the first in the post-Tim Cone era. Two games into the 2014 PBA Governors' Cup, he was appointed the head coach of Alaska Aces, replacing Luigi Trillo. In his first head coaching stint, he led the Aces to the semi-finals, losing to Rain or Shine in full five games. In the following season, he steered the Aces to the 2014-15 Philippine Cup Finals, only to lose to San Miguel Beermen in seven games. He also guided the Aces to the 2015 Governors' Cup Finals only to be swept by the Beermen in four games. In a rematch of the previous season's Philippine Cup Finals, the Beermen once again beat the Alaska Aces in 7 games, completing the Beermen's historic comeback from down 0-3 to win the series.
