Four individuals with long-standing ties to the northern Idaho athletic scene, including two former University of Idaho football players and two long-time referees, are the 2026 inductees into the North Idaho Athletic Hall of Fame, NIAHOF officials have announced.
Former Lewiston High, UI and NFL offensive lineman Jake Scott and former UI football player and college football assistant coach AJ Christoff join high school and college officials Corky Fazio and Roger Stewart as the honorees this year.
The four will be inducted during the Idaho Athletic Hall of Fame Banquet, which is set for Saturday, April 25, at the Coeur d’Alene Resort. Tickets for the banquet, which also features the North Idaho High School Awards, are $41 each and can be purchased online by going to www.nihof.org after Wednesday, March 25, and clicking on the “Purchase Tickets” brown box. Reserved tables for eight also can be purchased for $400. University of Idaho men’s basketball coach Alex Pribble will be the featured speaker.
Current and former student-athletes from northern Idaho high schools and colleges also will be honored that night. The finalists for each award will be announced on March 27. Each student-athlete nominated for an award that night can obtain a free ticket to the banquet. Information on how to obtain that ticket will be announced at the same time as the finalists.
Scott, who was born and grew up in Lewiston, played for four teams during his 10-year NFL career. He graduated in 1999 from Lewiston High, where he also threw the shot put and discus for the track team.
Scott walked on to the UI football team in the fall of ‘99, where he redshirted his first year. He earned a starting position as a freshman and went on to start 46 games at weak-side tackle during his UI career. He earned a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering and earned academic honors.
Following his senior year at UI, Scott was selected in the fifth round of the 2004 NFL draft by the Indianapolis Colts. He started nine games as a rookie and was selected to Football Digest’s All-Rookie Team. He started all 16 regular season games the following two years and also started in the postseason, including Super Bowl XLI when the Colts beat the Chicago Bears. He wound up playing four seasons for the Colts.
In 2008, Scott signed a free-agent contract with Tennessee where he played four seasons. He played with Philadelphia in 2012 and then signed with the Detroit Lions in the summer of 2013 before retiring. At one point, he had a run of 128 starts out of 131 games played.
Scott was inducted into the UI Hall of Fame in 2014.
Christoff had a 45-year successful coaching career that included being defensive coordinator for 18 seasons at six colleges and having a Top 20 defensive ranking in 10 seasons as defensive coordinator/secondary coach. He was on the coaching staff for teams that made 14 bowl games and won conference championships in the SEC, Pac 12, Conference USA, and Big Sky.
Christoff played offensive and defensive line at UI during the mid-1960s after a successful prep career at Ritzville High in Washington. After earning his education degree in 1967, he started his college coaching career when he was hired by his old Vandal coach Dee Andros at Oregon State University as an assistant in 1969. He earned his Masters degree there with a perfect 4.0 GPA. In 1970, he joined the Idaho staff and was the secondary coach when the Vandals won the league title in ’71 and had their best season in 67 years. He then moved to New Mexico State as secondary coach and recruiting coordinator for two years.
Christoff returned to Idaho to coach for another two years as assistant head coach and defensive coordinator before being hired by Rich Brooks at Oregon, where he was outside linebackers coach for two seasons and then defensive coordinator/defensive backs coach for four years.
In 1983, Christoff accepted the defensive coordinator position at Stanford and a year later, he was selected defensive coordinator at Notre Dame where he spent two seasons. He was later defensive backs coach at Georgia Tech (1986), Alabama (’87-89), UCLA (1990-94) and Colorado (‘95-98), where he was also defensive coordinator for a program that produced back-to-back 10 win seasons and a Cotton Bowl victory.
In 2000, he coached linebackers at USC and then spent two years at Cincinnati as defensive coordinator. He returned to Stanford in 2003 for two seasons as defensive coordinator and defensive backs coach before stepping into the NFL as the San Francisco 49ers defensive back coach.
Christoff has a strong connection to the North Idaho Hall of Fame. He was coached by three, coached with eight, coached five, and played with 15 members of the HOF.
While Christoff was at Alabama, the Crimson Tide won the SEC for the first time in seven years and played in the Sugar Bowl. At UCLA, the Bruins won the Pac 12 title for the first time in nine years and played in the Rose Bowl. Cincinnati won the Conference USA title for the first time in 37 years.
Fazio has officiated high school football, basketball and baseball games as well as college baseball games for more than 40 years. He also served as assistant baseball coach for Hall of Fame Lewis-Clark State College baseball coach Ed Cheff where the Warriors won several NAIA national championships.
Fazio arrived in Lewiston in the 1970s and played baseball at LCSC. He then played three years in Italy and was a member of the Italian National Team that won the European Championship in 1997. He was awarded a silver medal of honor from the Italian Olympic Federation.
Fazio eventually returned to Lewiston and became an assistant coach at LCSC. While coaching, he began to officiate high school sports in District II. In all he has 46 years of officiating high school football and basketball, and more than 40 years of being a college baseball umpire at the JUC, NAIA and NCAA DI, DII and DIII levels, including 38 at the NCAA DI level.
He started officiating high school football in 1979 and became the District II football commissioner in 2017. In all, he has officiated 20 high school state championship games. He also started officiating high school basketball games in 1979 and has worked more than 20 state tournaments. He has served as the District II basketball commissioner since 2020.
In baseball, Fazio has umpired at the college and high school level for 38 years, including American Legion regional and national tournaments, NCAA Junior College and NCAA DIII regionals and College World Series, and the NAIA regionals.
He has served as head groundskeeper at the NAIA World Series for more than 25 years. He also was the mayor of Lapwai for four years (2006-09) and also served on the Lapwai School Board as chairman (1990-92).
Fazio was inducted into the 2015 Shrewsbury High School Hall of Fame in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts. Most recently Fazio was named the 2025 Boys and Girls Club Volunteer of the Year for the LC Valley.
Stewart also has dedicated more than 40 years to athletics in northern Idaho, including being a football official at the high school, college and professional levels. He officiated 12 years in the Arena Football League, including the Arena Bowl championship in 2016 along with two conference championships.
Stewart is well known in the NCAA football world. He started officiating NCAA DII and DIII games in 1995 and worked seven postseason assignments between 1998-2005. In 2003, he was hired by the Big Sky Conference where he worked 234 games. He was selected to officiate 23 Division IAA and later FCS assignments, including three national semifinal contests. He retired from officiating Big Sky games in 2025 and is moving to the booth as a replay official in 2026, He served on the Big Sky Officials Association Board for 15 years and also served a term as board president.
Currently, Stewart is the assistant coordinator for football officials in the Frontier Conference and is a lead trainer for the Northwest Intercollegiate Football Officials Association.
On the high school front, he has been a certified official in Idaho since 1984 and has worked five state championship games. He has served as the Idaho High School Activities Association’s District I Football Commissioner since 2013, overseeing recruitment, training, and game assignments in the five northern counties.
Stewart has been inducted into the North Idaho Official’s Hall of Fame. He spent nearly 20 years as a board member for the North Idaho College Athletics Booster Club, which raises funds for the NIC sports and training programs.
Along with his wife Patty, they coached youth softball and basketball for many years and are the owners of Allegra of Coeur d’Alene, a regional marketing and printing business.
The North Idaho Athletic Hall of Fame was organized to honor those individuals who have achieved significant recognition in an area of athletic endeavor, or have made a special contribution to athletics in northern Idaho.
