I remember the headline.

“1-20 — and still winners.”

It was the end of Mark Flynn’s first season as East Rowan’s boys basketball coach. I watched Loss No. 20 at Sun Valley.

When it was over, another in the long list of games that the Mustangs hung tough until giving out near the end, was in the books.

Now, think about being 1-20. You’d think the backstabbing, the whining the finger-pointing would be at an all-time high.

So what could have possibly inspired me to write a story with that headline?

The players from that 1-20 team.

I stood out by the East bus as Jason Barger, along with a couple of other teammates, praised Flynn. They talked about having fun and wishing they could have won more for him, themselves and the school.

Barger said those things because he didn’t just play basketball under Flynn. He learned basketball under Flynn.

And now that Flynn has resigned after losing 78 of 94 games in four years, I can honestly say there was improvement in that program.

Can that really be?

It can if you appreciate the game.

Flynn has no bigger fan than the one guy that should’ve been his biggest rival — Mike Gurley.

Both came on the local scene at the same time. That was about the only thing that was the same. West was a proven winner. East hasn’t had a winning season since 1989 and was coming off a 2-22 year.

When Gurley got the news of Flynn’s resignation, he actually sounded a bit sad. When you’re in the coaching fraternity, you wish all coaches could win all the time. Gurley knows how much Flynn put into his game plans and how much he wanted to turn the program around.

And Gurley says Flynn should always remember that East improved.

“They got better every year because they followed his game plan,” said Gurley, who didn’t lose as many in his four years as Flynn won. “I always thought Mark had his team prepared. He worked as hard as he could to be successful.”

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Unfortunately in today’s world, success is gauged by wins and losses, not hard work and coming close.

And East did come close — time and time again.

“They took a bunch of teams to the wall,” Gurley said. “And sometimes, they bit those teams. Looking back, I’m sure Coach Flynn wishes they’d have gotten over the wall and won a few of those games. It would’ve definitely helped morale.”

A good example was in the Sam Moir Christmas Classic when East led in the second half before losing to eventual champion North Rowan 49-41. North would go on to win 27 straight and that was one of the toughest.

“They played very well,” remembers North coach Kelly Everhart. “They shot their free throws well most of the time and did a good job of boxing out.”

“I know Kelly will tell you he got all he wanted and we got all we wanted when we played them up here,” said Gurley. “We had to go to a box-and-one on (Justin)Miller and we never had to do that against East Rowan.”

Everhart, whose team eventually lost in the regional finals, used words like scrappy and hard-nosed when describing Flynn’s teams.

“I’m shocked that he was interested in getting out of coaching,” he said.

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Playing in the South Piedmont Conference doesn’t help matters when you’re trying to turn around a program. Miller, Taylor Weber, Adam Cornelius and Company deserved better.

“They were unfortunate that their careers were spent in the SPC, which is widely considered the toughest 3A conference in North Carolina,” Flynn said. “Our record was not a good measure of the quality of the team.”

“If the SPC wasn’t the best over the last four years, we were never far from it,” Gurley said.

Despite his resignation, Flynn talked about next year. He talked about guards like Derek Talbert. And 6-4 center Matt Butler. And how Matt Belk leaped over taller defenders. They’re all back, Flynn said, along with players from a successful jayvee team and Erwin Middle School.

To Flynn’s credit, he feels like he will coach again. In no way, shape or form is he a guy who wants to go cold turkey with this sport. Basketball is in his blood..

After starring for championship prep teams in Kentucky, he came to Salisbury and became one of Catawba’s top 3-point shooters ever. Catawba won titles when he was there. His father played on Kentucky Wesleyan’s national title team three decades ago and coached. His uncle coached.

Next year? “I’m gonna watch,” says Flynn.

He hasn’t done that since he was around 6 years old.

Bet on the fact he won’t watch for long. He has won too much at too many places.

You could say Mark Flynn ended his first coaching job 16-78 — but he still goes out a winner in our book.

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Ronnie Gallagher is the sports editor of the Post.