{"id":74823,"date":"2025-11-29T19:55:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-29T19:55:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/74823\/"},"modified":"2025-11-29T19:55:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-29T19:55:08","slug":"long-beach-jordan-basketball-coach-chris-francis-wins-300th-career-game-press-telegram","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/74823\/","title":{"rendered":"Long Beach Jordan basketball coach Chris Francis wins 300th career game \u2013 Press Telegram"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>LONG BEACH \u2014 Over his 25-year career, Long Beach Jordan boys basketball coach Chris Francis has not lost his love for the sport.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cJust looking back like wow, sometimes I reminisce\u2026 I\u2019m in love with the game of basketball,\u201d said Francis, who started as a high school basketball head coach before the 1999-2000 season at King\/Drew High. \u201cIt\u2019s been good to me and I\u2019m going to ride it out until I can\u2019t anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He said that passion fueled and guided him to earn his 300th career win as a high school basketball head coach, leading his team to a 73-67 nonleague victory over Narbonne at the Artesia Winter Classic tournament Wednesday night. The Panthers improved to 2-2 overall.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cObviously, it\u2019s a great milestone but in the game of the basketball I still can\u2019t make it about me,\u201d Francis continued. \u201cI still have to coach the team the way I normally coach the team and get the guys to be on the same page and for us to just stick to the game plan for 32 minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Francis finished last season with 298 wins, after going 14-15. The journey to win two more games came with self-imposed pressure, Francis admitted.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s a little pressure because it\u2019s something that me and my family, we\u2019ve been knowing that it\u2019s going to happen for a while,\u201d Francis explained.<\/p>\n<p>Francis\u2019 300 wins have come at King\/Drew, Compton Centennial, Millikan and most recently at Long Beach Jordan, where he led the program to a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.presstelegram.com\/2023\/02\/25\/long-beach-jordan-boys-basketball-outlasts-sage-hill-to-win-first-cif-ss-title-since-1996\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">CIF-SS Division 4A title<\/a> in 2023.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" lazyautosizes lazyload\" alt=\"Long Beach Jordan Head Coach Chris Francis celebrates his team's win against Sage Hill in the CIF-SS Division 4A boys basketball championship game at Edison High School in Huntington Beach on Saturday, February 25, 2023. Long Beach Jordan won the game 68-57. (Photo by Mark Rightmire, Orange County Register\/SCNG)\" width=\"3418\" data- src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/LPT-L-HSBB-SAGE-JORDAN-0226-04mr.jpg\" data-attachment-id=\"4508500\" \/>Long Beach Jordan Head Coach Chris Francis celebrates his team\u2019s win against Sage Hill in the CIF-SS Division 4A boys basketball championship game at Edison High School in Huntington Beach on Saturday, February 25, 2023. Long Beach Jordan won the game 68-57. (Photo by Mark Rightmire, Orange County Register\/SCNG)<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, Coach Francis\u2019 message about growing up in Louisiana before moving to California, still resonates with his former players.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCoach Chris reached 300 wins,\u201d said Alan Mitchell, one of Francis\u2019 former players, who is currently the head coach at St. Anthony High. \u201cGreat feat for a coach from Fisherville. Grateful to be a part of that journey where it all started at King\/Drew. 70-plus wins, championships, lessons and love. It wasn\u2019t always pretty but it was worth it. He knew how to get the most out of us and he\u2019s still doing it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Inside Long Beach Jordan boys basketball head coach Chris Francis\u2019 journey before earning his 300th win. <\/p>\n<p>After 25 years as a high school basketball head coach Coach Francis said he\u2019s still in love with the game of basketball. <\/p>\n<p>This interview is from after his first attempt to\u2026 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/SMNBFqvi4v\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/SMNBFqvi4v<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 John W. Davis (@johnwdavis) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/johnwdavis\/status\/1994838057120604195?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">November 29, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LONG BEACH \u2014 Over his 25-year career, Long Beach Jordan boys basketball coach Chris Francis has not lost&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":74824,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[7,17227,2044,131,133,132,137,127],"class_list":["post-74823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-california","tag-high-school-basketball","tag-high-school-sports","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news","tag-los-angeles-county","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74823","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74823"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74823\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74824"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}