THE FRONT ROW with MARK NELKE Oct. 1, 2015

Sid Otton was inducted into the Idaho Athletic Hall of Fame in 2009. Van Troxel was inducted earlier this year.

Otton is in his 42nd season as football coach at Tumwater (Wash.) High, a class 2A school just south of Olympia. Troxel is in his 22nd season as football coach at Lake City High, and 37th season overall as a high school football coach.

Between the two of them, they’ve won close to 600 football games. Otton is the winningest high school football coach in the state of Washington.

The two have known each other for more than three decades, but their teams had never met in a high school football game until last year.

Tumwater and Lake City have played a home-and-home series the past couple years. Tumwater — not your normal “small” school; they look like they could compete vs. some of the better 3A and 4A schools in Washington — handed Lake City its lone loss of the regular season last year, 49-24 at home. Last Friday, Tumwater visited Lake City and won 35-21.

“I’ve known Van for a ton of years,” said Otton, who was born in Lewiston. “Played against his dad when he was a high school coach at Borah (of Boise), and their teams are always going to be fundamentally sound, and he just does a great job with the football program. We used to compete over at Idaho at the Idaho camp in the summertime.”

Troxel has known Otton since he first started in the coaching business, in Montana.

“Thirty-five years ago, when I first started going to camps, Sid Otton was one of the first guys I met,” Troxel said. “And he has connections, he’s from south Idaho, he played against my dad (Ed), when my dad was at Borah, and he was at the University of Idaho, and my dad knew him then (when Ed was the Vandals’ football coach). And we’ve known each other for 35 years, so there’s always been a connection, and he’s just a great gentleman and a great football coach.”

Troxel’s teams in Montana used to compete against Otton’s Tumwater teams when they would both attend the Vandal Football Camp.

“For those first four, five, six years, whenever we went to the Idaho football camp, when I was in Montana, Tumwater was there,” Troxel said. “I’ve spent a lot of time with Sid.”

Otton graduated from Lewiston High, and played football at Boise Junior College and then at Weber State. He coached at Couperville (Wash.) and at Colfax in eastern Washington, befor taking over at Tumwater in 1974.

A couple of years ago, Lake City was just looking for somebody — anybody — to play, to fill out their schedule.

“And he’s the one that offered to play,” Troxel said, “because sometimes, nobody will play us.”

SO, AFTER all these years, what was it like to play one of Otton’s teams?

“Well, so far I’m not happy — I’m 0-2 (against him),” Troxel said. “(But) you like competing against guys you totally respect, and he’s a quality act. He takes a knee (at the end of Friday’s game). He’s a real gentleman, and it’s a pleasure to compete against because of how his kids are coached — they’re always going to play hard.

Mark Nelke is sports editor of The Press. He can be reached at 664-8176, Ext. 2019, or mnelke@cdapress.com. Follow him on Twitter at CdAPressSports.