February has been a fitting time for Devaughn Drayton and Bobby Dobson.
The longstanding high-school basketball head coaches in Arlington were recognized by their peers, selected as Liberty District, then also as 6D North Region, Coaches of the Year this season for leading their respective teams to regular-season and league-tournament first-place finishes.
Drayton has coached the Yorktown Patriots girls team for 10 season. This winter he has led the squad to probably its most accomplished campaign in program history. Yorktown went 11-1 to win the regular-season district crown, then backed that up with a 2-0 record to earn the league-tournament title for the first time.
The improvement was significant for the Patriots this season; the squad last winter had a modest 8-8 overall record.
Yorktown won its first-round region-tournament contest and entered the semifinals with 20 wins, its most since the 2007-08 season. The Patriots last reached the region semifinals in 2008.
Drayton has more than 100 victories as Yorktown’s coach. He was the head coach at Arlington rival Wakefield High, where he graduated in 1994 and played for the boys basketball team, for a few seasons prior to Yorktown.
Drayton downplayed the Coach of the Year honors. He said he gladly would trade either if Yorktown senior forward Ana Bournigal would have been chosen as the district Player of the Year instead, an honor he believed she definitely deserved. Bournigal was chosen first-team all-district and all-region, but not Player of the Year in the district.
“I’m so happy for our players and the success they have had,” Drayton said. “They have worked so hard and overcome so much this season, and with all the COVID stuff. Ana has led us and is a Player of the Year to us.”
Dobson has coached the Washington-Liberty Generals boys since the 1993-94 season. He had 320 career wins as the team’s leader entering this season’s region-tourney semifinals, with W-L owning a 17-6 overall record and a nine-game winning streak.
The Generals also had a first-place 11-1 regular-season district record, then validated that mark by winning the tournament. It was W-L’s first district-tournament crown since 2001.
Not one for personal accolades, Dobson never mentioned the Coach of the Year honors during recent interviews. When asked about the award, he said: “If I get an award, our players get all the credit. They have been great to coach. I trust them and they trust me. It’s pretty simple. I tell them to make good make plays and play hard on defense. If they don’t play hard on defense, then they hear from me.”
Dobson began his high-school coaching career as the junior varsity boys coach at Arlington private school Bishop O’Connell for one season before getting the head coaching position at then Washington-Lee.
Dobson played high-school basketball in Northern Virginia at Flint Hill.