THE FRONT ROW with MARK NELKE: Winding coaching road leads Lake City grad Endsley back to Idaho

A few years ago, at the invitation of a coaching friend who was on the Idaho staff, Loren Endsley was invited to attend Vandal football practices, and talk shop with the coaching staff. 

At the time Endsley, a 2009 Lake City High grad, was an assistant coach at Ohio University.  

A few years earlier, he and Rob Aurich were on the staff together at South Dakota. Aurich had just been hired as defensive coordinator at Idaho, and invited Endsley to Moscow. 

The Vandals’ running backs coach at the time was Thomas Ford, now beginning his first season as Idaho’s head coach. Endsley knew Ford from the recruiting trail, when Endsley was offensive coordinator at NAIA Dakota Wesleyan in Mitchell, S.D., recruiting the Northwest, and Ford was an assistant at Simon Fraser in Burnaby, British Columbia. 

Those connections, and that visit, paid off in January, when Endsley was named offensive line coach at Idaho, and later added the duties of run game coordinator. 

“This is a dream opportunity for me,” said Endsley, 34. “Growing up in the area, coming down here, watching games on Saturdays, and we always came to Vandal Camp every summer with (coach Van) Troxel and Lake City. Being able to coach here, after being around the program for so long growing up, it’s a big honor.” 

AFTER THAT initial visit in 2022, Endsley came back to Moscow for a few days each of the next two seasons to observe practices and hang with the Vandal coaches. 

“One of the biggest things I took away was the culture they had built,” Endsley said. “It’s a strong culture, and coach Ford was a big part of that from his time on the initial staff (in 2022 and ‘23; before coaching on the Oregon State staff in 2024). Their work ethic is very, very high. It’s a family culture; guys love each other here, they love being Vandals." 

After playing football at Idaho State and at Eastern Oregon University in La Grande, Endsley began his coaching journey with two seasons as head coach at Lake Roosevelt (Wash.) High.  

His resume also includes stints as an assistant at Eastern Oregon, two years on the staff at Dakota Wesleyan (2018-19), the next year as quality control coach at South Dakota, the 2021 season as assistant offensive line coach at Ohio U., and the past three seasons as offensive line coach and run game coordinator at NCAA Division II Minnesota-Duluth. 

Endsley said he hoped he would one day return to the Northwest to coach. 

“To be honest I wouldn’t come back if the culture wasn’t strong,” he said of Idaho. “Honestly, culture wins you a lot of games. When you have that strong culture, it makes up for a lot. That’s what they had here, and watching them build that ... because it wasn’t like that. I remember the years when Idaho football wasn’t like that, and it’s back, and it does have that strong culture, and it does have that presence in the Northwest, I think that’s something (previous Idaho coach Jason) Eck did. We’re doing a really good job of recruiting the Northwest, and getting Northwest guys in our building. I think that it helps with the culture as well — having guys that take a lot of pride in being Vandals.” 

“Culture” is the big buzzword these days — many players cite culture as the reason they chose a particular school. 

What defines Idaho’s culture? 

“The biggest thing is work ethic,” Endsley said. “These kids work extremely hard ... they want it, and they are willing to put the time in, willing to put the work in, and it’s not easy being a college football player, and these guys go above and beyond. 

“Other things — the family part of it. Other places I’ve been, I’ve had to build the family from the ground up. Here, I just had to implement myself into it. These kids really care about each other, there’s a strong connection, you can see it by the way they play. There’s not that attitude in the rooms, there’s a lot of positivity, a lot of guys that care about each other.” 

There can be a balance between coaching kids hard, but still being positive and loving. 

"I think the biggest thing with that is honesty,” Endsley said. “Especially in this day, with the transfer portal being what it is ... being honest, not attacking the individual. I think you can coach hard and correct things without being demeaning toward the kids. These guys want honesty. Anybody who wants to be good wants the honest feedback so they can keep improving.” 

ONE OF Endsley’s first tasks once he was hired at Idaho was recruiting — his own players. 

“My first day, I had to jump on Zooms and calls, because we had a decent amount of linemen in the portal,” Endsley said. “Because that’s what the world is nowadays. When the coach leaves, everyone gets in the portal, because they don’t know what’s going to happen. When coach Ford got hired we brought a lot of those kids back in, because they had that relationship with him; he had coached and recruited a lot of those kids.” 

Endsley said of the five Vandal linemen who were in the portal, four chose to return to Idaho — two of them starters. 

“It’s part of the world now, man,” he said. “It’s a crazy world with this transfer portal. It’s just kinda how it is; whenever a coach leaves, kids are going to get in the portal until they figure out what’s going on.” 

One of the linemen Endsley coaches at Idaho is Alex Green, a redshirt sophomore from Lake City. Green played some left tackle last year at Idaho, but is playing guard this year. 

“I love Alex; he’s a really hard worker,” Endsley said. “He’s getting better every single game. I do give him some grief every once in a while about losing to Coeur d’Alene. I never lost to them (in high school), and he never beat them. We definitely go back and forth about that.” 

ENDSLEY IS one of a handful of players from his era at Lake City — including current Timberwolf head football coach Byron Hout — who have gone into coaching after college. 

That’s the influence of Van Troxel, who started the Lake City program in 1994, and coached it for 22 seasons. 

“Troxel really inspired a lot of us,” Endsley said. “He’s one of the biggest inspirations I’ve had in my life. He completely changed my life. That’s when I wanted to coach, and make a difference in young men’s lives. Troxel did a real good job at Lake City, and showed us the way, and a lot of us want to give back, and a lot of us were inspired by that, to go down that route.” 

How? 

"When you’re young, there’s a lot of different paths you can choose, and he showed me a path of hard work and dedication,” Endsley said. “He really believed in me, and showed me if you go full-speed into something, and work as hard as you can, you can make it. He was tough on us when we needed it, he was there for us when we needed it. He just impacted me greatly.” 

Endsley said he enjoyed his time at Lake Roosevelt, taking a team that hadn’t won much, boosting turnout tremendously and guiding the team into the state football playoffs. 

“It was a lot of fun, but at the end of the day, once your season’s over, it’s over, and they move on to basketball and wrestling, and I wanted to keep growing as a football coach," Endsley said. 

And college offered the chance to coach kids year-round.  

He ran into his old offensive coordinator at Eastern Oregon, Tyler Paopao, and said he was interested in coaching in college. 

As the coaching world turns, Paopao is now wide receivers coach at Idaho. 

THE COACHING profession is an often nomadic life, but for now, Endsley is in an ideal spot. His wife, the former Cassie Wendt, attended Ferris High in Spokane, and was an All-American softball player at Eastern Oregon, where they met. 

Parents and grandparents live nearby, which is nice for Loren and Cassie’s boys, Cooper, 5, and Payton, 3. 

Loren’s dad, Shaun, and step-mom, Suzanne, are accomplished triathletes in the region. 

“Working here is a dream come true,” Endsley said of Idaho. “It took a lot of hard work and dedication, and I’m just happy to be here with a great staff and a great head coach.”  

Mark Nelke is sports editor of The Press. He can be reached at 208-664-8176, Ext. 1205, or via email at mnelke@cdapress.com. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) @CdAPressSports.