Greg Lee column: It was a humble beginning for Van Troxel

A month before newly built Lake City High School was poised to open, it wasn’t turn-key ready.

The grass on the football practice field wasn’t prepared for the wear and tear of two a days. The locker rooms and the weight room weren’t finished.

And on top of that, coach Van Troxel, who was moving from Missoula to coach the Timberwolves, was waiting for the home he was having built to be finished.

So the T-Wolves relocated across town to Person Field, where they practiced on a long-abandoned patch of grass that would later become home to a junior tackle program that Troxel helped revive.

And the small fieldhouse at Person served as a temporary locker room/weight room. It was also home for Troxel, who slept on a cot.

Those early days still amuse Lake City athletic director Jim Winger, who has long admired how Troxel plunged himself headlong into building a program.

“When I think of how Van got started here, I think of the cot he slept on down at Person Field,” Winger said, laughing. “I mean, you talk about starting with nothing.”

The split at Coeur d’Alene High wasn’t equitable either. And that’s understandable. Most of the seniors to be wanted to finish at the school they started at as freshmen.

Troxel got a couple kids with varsity experience but the majority of players he started with were greener than the standard offering in a Crayola box.

The final results that first year spoke to the inexperience. LC finished 0-9.

LC got its first win the second season and jumped up to three in the third year.

The breakthrough came in 1997 with his first senior class that had been through the school four years. His oldest son, Chad, was the starting quarterback.

The pivotal game came against then-power Lewiston. The Bengals took a 26-0 lead into halftime, but the T-Wolves rallied for a 27-26 victory that launched a 16-year stretch of state playoff appearances.

That team, for many reasons, will forever hold a special spot in Troxel’s heart.

As will his 1999 team, six seasons removed from the first year. It was his first team to advance to a state championship game. LC lost but finished 11-1.

The first of two state titles came two years later when the T-Wolves equaled the 1999 record.

Easily the best of Troxel’s teams came along in 2006 when LC finished 12-0. That team featured University of Oregon-bound offensive lineman Carson York and linebacker Christian Hanna along with future Boise State linebacker Byron Hout.

The last of 18 playoff teams was two years ago when LC finished 9-2. It featured arguably the most speed Troxel ever had led by fleet-footed Jerry Louie-McGee.

Sandpoint coach Satinia Puailoa is going to miss squaring off against Troxel’s teams. More than anything, he’s going to miss a football friendship forged when Puailoa arrived from Santa Barbara, California the same year Troxel moved to CdA.

“I had so much fun and enjoyment working with Trox,” Puailoa said. “His teams were the very best competition we went against. There will never be another like him. Things will not be the same at Lake City. As far as I am concerned he is Lake City. They should name the school after him. (He) coached everything, built everything. I will miss him immensely.”

Troxel said he knew it was time to retire because he had lost his passion to run the program the way he thought it should be done – working his tail off.

So now it’s off to play with grandchildren. And there’s no doubt Troxel will be as good a grandpa as he was a coach because he knows no other way than to be all in.