His 300th-win season turned out to be the last for longtime head high-school football coach Bruce Hanson.

The head coach of the Yorktown Patriots decided in recent days to step down from the position he took over in 1985. Hanson also will retire as a phys-ed teacher at the Arlington school.

Hanson finishes with 302 career victories. His 300th win came against the Centreville Wildcats this fall in week six of the regular season.

Of those wins, 272 came during his 39 seasons at Yorktown. The other 30 came when he was the head coach in the 1970s at Wakefield High School.

Overall, Hanson, 74, has coached high-school football for 52 years.

The Patriots finished 6-5 and earned a region-playoff berth this fall, losing to Washington-Liberty.

“You have to retire sooner or later, and after looking at my state-retirement situation and everything, this is the best time now,” Hanson told ARLnow. “The program is in good shape, and it’s time for someone else to take over. I feel good about this decision.”

Often using a wing-T offense, or variation, that created envy and fear among opponents, Hanson’s Yorktown teams won 12 district championships, two regional crowns and finished second in the region four times.

The first region title came in just his fourth season at Yorktown, when Chris Williams played on the team. Williams is now Yorktown’s head golf coach and the longtime announcer at Patriots’ home varsity football games. He also coached football under Hanson at Yorktown.

“Bruce gave me my start in coaching. Coach has never stopped being a mentor to me,” Williams said. “I brag to friends how I get to talk to coach every day.”

The Washington-Liberty Generals have been Yorktown’s biggest rival during Hanson’s tenure, and Hanson has that team’s respect.

“The man is an institution, and I thought he’d outlast me as a head coach,” said W-L head coach Josh Shapiro, who has coached against Hanson’s teams as the Generals’ head coach since 2007. “He’s brilliant. His teams are always tough to prepare for because he takes that base wing-T offense and makes deviations from that with in-game adjustments and formations to fit his personnel.”

Yorktown director of student activities Mike Krulfeld said the process soon will begin to choose Hanson’s replacement, with an application deadline of Dec. 6. Krulfeld said he hopes to have a successor chosen in early January.

“Coach Hanson is a legend at Yorktown and in the Arlington County sports community.” Krulfeld told ARLnow. “His modesty, positivity and leadership has earned him the respect of all those he comes in contact with.”

Krulfeld said that his former players routinely come back to coach at Yorktown under Hanson, and many spectators at games are parents of players who have moved across the country, but still support Yorktown football thanks to the culture Hanson developed.

He said Hanson always appreciated the four-year program players who participated on the Yorktown teams just as much as the star players.

“His retirement will leave a large gap in our athletic program and we are committed to continue the legacy of hard work, acting with discipline and respect, and most importantly, creating a team culture where everyone has a place and wants to be involved,” Krulfeld said.

Hanson graduated from Springbrook High School in Montgomery County, Md., in 1968, then played football at the College of William and Mary, graduating in 1972.

He applied for his first high-school coaching job as a football assistant at Arlington’s private Bishop O’Connell High School. He wasn’t hired there, but was shortly thereafter at Wakefield, beginning his high-school coaching career at age 22.

NOTES: There were only seven coaches listed with 300 wins in the Virginia High School League public-school football record-book section when the 2024 campaign began. Former Hampton Crabbers’ coach Mike Smith has the most, with 506 victories. Former Stone Bridge head coach Mickey Thompson (336 career wins) is the only VHSL coach in the Northern Virginia area with more wins than Hanson on that list.