Van Troxel, who has accomplished quite a bit in his splendid high school football coaching career, reached another milestone the other day.

Though to ask him about it, it was no big deal.

Troxel recorded his 200th victory last Friday when Lake City defeated Sandpoint.

His reaction?

“Just another win — I don’t even care,” Troxel said Tuesday afternoon, taking a few minutes away from preparing for Friday’s game at Chiawana in Pasco, Wash. “What’s important to me is we’ve got four wins in a row.”

Troxel’s record is 200-149-1, in his 34th year as a high school coach. He is 123-70-1 in his 19th season at Lake City. The Timberwolves have made it to the state playoffs each of the past 15 seasons.

Lake City kept that streak alive despite going 18-22 over the past four seasons. That came on the heels of 11 straight winning seasons. This year’s Timberwolves are off to a 4-1-1 start, and there’s lots of optimism around the Lake City camp.

“I really like these guys,” Troxel said. “They are a lot of fun. The reason we are having some success is, they’re my type of guys — they’re not afraid to work. They’re not overly talented, but we have more talent than in the past. They’re just a good group of guys that love to play football.

“That’s what these guys are trying to do — re-establish that work level (of the winning teams of the past), and get us back to that level. We’ve had tougher practices than in the past, because that’s what they want.

“They’re into it; the coaches are into it,” he added. “It’s really been a good two-way street, and we’ll see where it takes us.”

Troxel is 58, and said he doesn’t know how long he will keep coaching.

“When I decide it’s not fun or exciting, or I’m not doing a good job, then it’s time to get out,” he said.

TROXEL HAS meant more to Lake City than just what he does as a football coach, said Jim Winger, who came to Lake City as boys basketball coach in 1994 when the school opened, and is now the athletic director and recently returned as boys hoops coach.

“If you watched him in our weight room, he handles 80 kids with an amazing amount of ease,” Winger said. “And everybody should see a pep assembly with Trox. He’s done a lot more here than just in football.”

Troxel runs the weight program at Lake City, so he works with nearly every athlete in every sport.

Winger recalled, back in the summer of 1994, when Troxel was starting the Lake City football program, and the football field at Lake City wasn’t quite ready for play.

So the Timberwolves worked out in the summer at Person Field.

“I don’t think anybody can match his work ethic,” Winger said. “When we opened we didn’t have a field yet, so he did everything down at Person, including sleeping in a cot in the old storage room. No matter the roadblock, he just kept working.”

And that trait, Winger said, has continued throughout his career.

“One of the things I really admire about him, was when we opened, even with a slow start (a 4-23 record his first three seasons), he was going to keep working, keep grinding. And the last 16 years speak for itself.”

IF I remember correctly, Troxel is the same guy who, when he applied for the job at Lake City, which was opening its school in 1994, he didn’t even list his coaching record at Hellgate High in Missoula.

His reasoning — the numbers didn’t matter.

Turns out, he was right. Building a program and developing young men was far more important than adding together numbers from winning seasons and not-so-winning seasons.

(For the record, his record at Hellgate was 77-79 in 15 seasons.)

Oh sure, he said, he could tell you how many wins Lake City had in 2006, but that was because the Timberwolves won a state title that year with a perfect, dominating 12-0 record.

“If nobody had said anything, I wouldn’t have even known,” Troxel said of his 200th win. “I would just as soon nobody kept track of that stuff. All it means is that I’ve coached a long time.”

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