His work is done

COEUR d’ALENE — It was two summers ago when the moment first hit him.

Van Troxel, who started the Lake City High football program in 1994, was presiding over a summer weightlifting session for his players — something he has done for nearly four decades.

His wife, Karen, stopped by to tell him she was headed into Spokane to visit their granddaughter.

“Do you want to come?” she asked him.

Van thought about it for a moment.

“I looked around and said, ‘Coach Wright, you’re in charge,’” Troxel said.

“That’s when I really started thinking about (stepping down as coach),” Troxel said.

Troxel, 61, made it official this week, resigning as Lake City football coach after guiding the Timberwolves the first 22 seasons of their existence. He told the players Monday night, then turned in his letter of resignation late Wednesday afternoon.

“I’ve always said when I got to a point where I wasn’t working harder than everyone else ... that’s what I’ve built (my programs) on, anyway, isn’t it? And I wasn’t doing that. I always told myself when that happens, you need to step away,” Troxel said.

In 22 seasons at Lake City, Troxel posted a record of 142-85-1, winning two state titles and advancing to the state title game two other times. In 37 total seasons as head coach, which included 13 at Hellgate High in Missoula before coming to Lake City, and two years at Hamilton (Mont.) High before that, Troxel’s record is 219-164-1.

“When I think of Van, I think of the worker,” said Lake City athletic director Jim Winger, who has been boys basketball coach and/or AD since the school opened. “I know for sure that over the last 22 years here, nobody outworked coach Troxel.”

Troxel said he’ll continue teaching weight training at Lake City. In 3 1/2 years, he’ll be eligible for retirement through the state’s Rule of 90. Karen, principal at Winton Elementary, is on the same timeframe to retirement.

“Van set the bar in North Idaho for what it takes to be successful,” said Shawn Amos, football coach at Coeur d’Alene High since 1997. “I have learned a lot from watching how he runs his program. He has the ability to be very demanding, but his players still love and respect him. Even though our programs are rivals and we have been competing against each other for 20 years we have maintained a friendship and mutual respect for each other. It will be very strange playing Lake City and not seeing Van on the other sideline.”

Under Troxel, Lake City qualified for the state playoffs 17 times, including 16 straight from 1997-2012. His oldest son, Chad, was a junior quarterback on the T-Wolves’ first playoff team and his other son, Matt, helped Lake City win its first state title in 2002, his junior season.

Lake City also played for the state title in 1999 and 2001.

Lake City’s other state title came in 2006, capping a 12-0 season that Van Troxel said was “as good as it gets.”

Post Falls High coach Jeff Hinz said one of Troxel’s most impressive coaching jobs may have come in 2009, when he won just three games — but they came against the other three teams in the 5A Inland Empire League, and sent the Timberwolves to the state playoffs.

“If you look at the program that he built at Lake City from scratch, he’s done a fantastic job of showing the blueprint on what it takes to build a varsity program,” said Hinz, who recently completed his 11th season as Trojans coach. “As a friend and a colleague, and a guy you can bounce things off of, he’s going to be missed in the league.”

Troxel, who graduated from Moscow High and played football at the University of Montana, came to Lake City in spring 1994, as soon as the school year ended at Hellgate. As some of Lake City’s facilities weren’t quite ready for the scheduled opening that fall, and the Troxels were having a house built in Coeur d’Alene, Troxel slept on a cot in a storage shed at Person Field four nights a week during the summer, then went back to Missoula on weekends. The school set him up with what passed for a cell phone at the time in case John Brumley, the Lake City principal who hired him, or others needed to reach him at the field. Depending on the needs at the time, the building at Person Field served as either a weight room or a locker room, and the team practiced at Person until school started.

The family moved into their new home the day before school started.

The first couple seasons at Lake City were a bit rugged. The T-Wolves went 0-9 in 1994, Troxel’s first season. Meanwhile, Hellgate, the team he had left, played for the state championship.

“But I was coming here because the future of Hellgate was not what I wanted it to be,” Troxel said. “I thought we had a chance, by coming to Coeur d’Alene, to build a football program.”

After going 1-8 and 3-6 the next two seasons, Lake City went 8-2 in 1997, and reached the state playoffs for the first time.

“We started at ground zero, but it didn’t take long before we were rolling along pretty well,” Winger said.

Troxel recalled, when his father, Ed, was a head coach, how former players often came back to touch base with their old coach. Van Troxel was also a mentor of sorts to others at Lake City, not just football players.

“To know I had an impact on some kids over the years, and I think I’ve helped them become better young men and women, I think that’s probably the most important accomplishment,” Troxel said.

Winger said the school will post the football coaching opening soon, with the hopes of hiring the new coach in late March or early April.

Troxel said he would like to see Travis Harmon, a current Lake City assistant who once played for Troxel at LC, succeed him. Harmon is spearheading all of Lake City’s offseason football activities now.

“There needs to be new leadership and new direction,” Troxel said. “But the traditions and the things that we’ve established, that’s what I hope stays in place.”

He noted several other former Timberwolf players are assistant coaches in the program.

“I think we can make a change now because there’s enough of those guys that understand the tradition, but need to do some different things.”

Troxel said that while he may be done as a head coach, he might consider a return to coaching if there was a chance to work with his son, Matt, now an assistant coach at Idaho State, should his son land a head coaching job.

“The times I’ve had to watch him and be with him, he’s superb,” Troxel said. “I’d just love to be a part of what he’s doing. He’s been such a part of what I did, it would be a blast. It would have to be somebody willing to hire both of us.”

Troxel said part of what attracted him to come to the city of Coeur d’Alene in the first place was the passion he noticed the area had for high school athletics while he was playing for Moscow. Pointing to the success that Lake City and Coeur d’Alene high schools have both had over the past few decades, Troxel said Coeur d’Alene is the best football town in the state.

“I think we’ve established Lake City as one of the better football programs in the state of Idaho,” Troxel said.