By BOB DAVIDSON
Salina Journal
Francis Flax is glad he didn't heed all of Dennis Erkenbrack's advice.
Flax had been out of coaching for a year after a nine-year stint at Highland Community College, but yearned to roam the sidelines again.
He contacted Erkenbrack, the longtime coach at Cloud County, and learned Brown Mackie College was getting ready to start an athletic program with the focus on men's basketball and was seeking an athletic director/coach.
"He encouraged me that if I wanted to get back in it, I ought to take this job," Flax said. "Of course, he also told me to take the job and move on. He said it would be a 'good place to start and get your foot back in the door and move on.'"
Flax applied, was offered the job and accepted, fielding his first team during the 1992-93 season. But that's as far as he went with Erkenbrack's advice.
Sixteen years, 313 victories and two National Junior College Athletic Association Division II championships later, Flax is still at Brown Mackie and has no intentions of leaving any time soon.
Next season, however, he will have an additional title when he takes the floor in the Lions' season opener -- that of hall of fame coach.
Flax will be inducted into the NJCAA's Men's Basketball Coaches Association Hall of Fame during ceremonies Wednesday during the organization's Division II national tournament in Danville, Ill., where he guided the Lions to their two titles.
Heady stuff for a guy who built a powerhouse program at a school that initially occupied the second floor of a building in downtown Salina, and now occupies a renovated hardware store in the south part of town.
Flax has crafted a 313-209 record at Brown Mackie, and has a 488-389 ledger in 25 years as a junior college coach. He also coached nine years in the high school ranks, at Spearville and Ellinwood, and has over 600 career victories.
Flax points to three factors for his success at Brown Mackie -- the school's administration, the city of Salina, and his ability to convince quality players to play for him.
"The administration that I've had has completely backed me and given me a lot of freedom and independence with running the program," he said. "That said, I think I ran the program in a way that they've like and each year they've said, 'You can continue to keep doing this.' I've had an administration I've really liked.
"One of the biggest factors is Salina itself. I think my wife (Carmen) and I decided a long time ago this is where we wanted to call home. This is the perfect scenario.
"The last part is that I've been able to attract quality players to the school. That's not easy when you figure out you don't have a gym, you don't have dormitories, you don't have food service ... That is a challenging thing," he said.
Flax led Brown Mackie to Division II championships in 1999 and 2005, and to fourth-place finishes in 1997 and 1998. The Lions dropped from Division I to Division II just before the 1996-97 season -- a move Flax said was necessary for survival.
"The region (6) was putting pressure on all the schools to go to the Jayhawk Conference and at a private school such as Brown Mackie, in-state tuition and out-of-state tuition are the same," he said.
"I'm not going to get a kid from Salina South that is a good basketball player if he wants to go to another community college because he can go for books and tuition that will be paid. At Brown Mackie we're not paying books and tuition. They have to pay to go. I'm not going to get any Kansas kids.
"The rules are you can have six out-of-staters if you're in the Jayhawk Conference. That wasn't going to work at our school if we wanted to have competitive program, and I wasn't going to coach if I couldn't have a competitive program."
That meant Flax had to go outside the state and bring in players good enough to compete against schedules that feature several games against Jayhawk Conference teams, and also be highly competitive in Division II.
His recruiting breakthrough season came in 1995-96.
"I had players on that team that were recruited by people all over the United States," he said. "That was Gary Johnson (Southern Cal), Wayne Houston (Southern Indiana), Damon Tankersley (McNeese State), Mohammad Komara (West Texas A&M) and Marvin Wilson (Nevada-Reno). I had another kid, Greg Jones, who didn't play but was here and was a star at West Virginia.
"When I got that crew out here, I got excited about what I could do. The next year I had (NJCAA All-Americans) Eddie Robinson and David Carson."
But Flax's recruiting success came with a price. Several of the players he signed had encountered problems at other schools, or worse. Two of his best players, All-Americans Lee Benson and James Williams, came to Brown Mackie after serving lengthy prison sentences.
Flax was and remains defiantly unfazed.
"Anybody who questions that has probably made a mistake or two in their life and won't share their bad decisions with anybody. I see good in every person," he said.
Jason Homer, who played for Flax during the 1998-99 season and is in his third season as his assistant, said the players know precisely where they stand.
"He's a no-nonsense kind of guy. He's going to give it to you up front and expects you to be a man about it," Homer said. "If you can deal with it, you can. And if you can't, no hard feelings, glad you came and he'll wish you best of luck."
Homer has seen the same thing as his assistant.
"He's honest. He's not selling wolf tickets out here like a lot of coaches do," he said. "He's all school first, then sports second. He wants to make sure the school part is done and everything else will be all right.
"He tells the kids if they've got any questions or any problems, if they need help, the door is always open. And they know his cell phone number."
He also can be tough if players don't follow the rules.
Flax dismissed Earnest Noel from this year's team at the semester break after he encountered academic difficulties. Noel was the team's leading scorer and the Lions never recovered, finishing the season with an 11-19 record.
"If I'm satisfied in my conversations with them and they're sincere about changing their lives, I'm going to give them a chance," Flax said. "As many good years and players as I've had, it didn't always work out.
"I got rid of some good players, I didn't let some good players come back after last year that were redshirted in this program because I didn't think they were sincere in meeting those objectives and trying to get an education and go on."
Flax also attributes his success to hard work, something he learned growing up Ransom along with his nine brothers and five sisters.
"I had a work habit that was instilled in me as a youngster and I carry that with me, and I'm going to continue to carry that with me. You can beat me, you can have better players, you may have better resources, more budget ... but you're not going to outwork me," he said.
Flax also credits the support he's gotten from his family -- his wife, daughter Rachel and son Bryson, who played for him this season.
"They've always supported it, my wife has supported it," he said. "She's done a wonderful job accepting what I do and she always backs me and these kids I bring in that some of the critics call 'problem kids.' It takes a special family to put up with a coach meeting his goals."
Flax, who turned 61 in December, said he has no plans to retire. This season's struggles only strengthened his resolve.
"My job's not done at Brown Mackie," he said. "I have every intention of getting back to Danville before I even think about calling it quits."