By BOB DAVIDSON

Salina Journal

Having finally notched the 500th victory of his junior college coaching career, Francis Flax was already looking ahead.

But not very far.

"It is a milestone, but the thing I have to focus on is 501. You have to get to that mark before you can go on," Flax said Friday night after leading the Brown Mackie Lions to a 92-53 victory over Labette in a game played in Hesston.

Flax, who's in his 18th season at BMC and 27th as a junior college coach, needs three victories to become the winningest juco coach in Kansas history. Longtime Cloud County coach Dennis Erkenbrack currently holds the record of 502.

Flax coached at Highland before coming to Brown Mackie, where he has won 334 games.

"It was convincing, I can tell you that," Flax said of Friday's game. "It was a long time coming. That should have happened way before now."

The victory raises the Lions' record to 2-6 this season while playing a brutal schedule. Brown Mackie shot 68 percent from the field (36 of 53) and held Labette to 34 percent shooting (18 of 53).

"I'm really proud of the kids," Flax said. "We've been through some tough games the last couple of weeks. They had some soul searching, and we did some different things at practice. We went back to basics and it really paid off tonight.

"We had a 30 point lead (49-19) at halftime. You don't get very many of those in Kansas junior college basketball."

Brian Word led Brown Mackie with 18 points on 8 of 10 shooting while Bernie Bahr had 12 on 5 of 6 shooting. Robbie Lewis and Josh Langford each scored 10 and neither missed a shot -- Lewis going 5 for 5 and Langford 3 for 3.

Flax recorded his first junior college victory in November, 1979, in his first outing as a juco coach when he led Highland past Wentworth Military Academy in a game at Lexington, Mo.

"It doesn't seem like 26 years and eight games ago," he said with a laugh.

Brown Mackie plays Northern Oklahoma-Enid at 4 p.m. today, then faces Southeast Nebraska at home on Tuesday before entertaining the Central Christian junior varsity at home next Friday.

For Flax, though, it's all about tonight's game against a Northern Oklahoma-Enid team that's 8-2 this season.

"If you're satisfied with a milestone, you should quit. I'm not ready to quit yet," he said.

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