Dewitt Cotton becomes first Black to win boys title at Westchester

Four years after replacing a legend the longtime assistant wins it

By Kenneth Miller|Sports Editor

Westchester boys basketball coach Dewitt Cotton (NICK KOZA/PHOTO)

For years legendary high school basketball coach Ed Azzam and his longtime assistant Dewitt Cotton would go back and forth about whether it was time.

By the time 2021 had arrived, Azzam was convinced that no matter if Cotton was ready or not he was going to step down after 42 years and 15 Los Angeles City Championships as coach of the Westchester boys basketball program.

“I wanted to make sure he was comfortable, and then he finally told me he was ready,” Azzam explained to South Bay Black Journal.

When Azzam retired, he knew that Dewitt Cotton was ready to take over one of the most coveted coaching jobs in the nation, a storied program steeped in basketball tradition and renowned for producing collegiate and professional players.

COVID had obliterated the sports experience for Los Angeles Unified School District student/athletes just a year before, forging rules and regulations never seen before. Players required to wear surgical masks, handshakes and hugs reduced to waves or perhaps an elbow bump.

Azzam did not openly stomp for his longtime assistant coach to replace him, but he did not really have to.

Cotton played three years for Azzam before graduating in 1985, and although he wasn’t one of his most talented players, nobody played harder or embellished the mantra of what was essential to play basketball for Westchester.

“They didn’t come to me and say who do you want. I talked to Brian (Henderson, the athletic director) and he spoke to the assistant principal,” Azzam recalled.

Finally, when Cotton was named head coach he was inheriting a program that was returning just 4 varsity players, and because of COVID there were no junior varsity players to develop thus reversing the fortunes of Westchester basketball.

Assistant coaches left for other programs, and criticism began to mount from alumni that Cotton was not qualified to serve as head coach.

Cotton, who was also an outstanding baseball player at Westchester, ducked those high fastballs at his head and stayed true to what he learned from Azzam, the man he simply refers to as coach.

In annals of high school basketball and specifically Westchester, Azzam is revered as much as the late John Wooden.

From his many years as an assistant in the early 1990’s until Azzam retired, Cotton and Azzam knew each other so well they could complete their sentences.

“He’s just an extension of me,” Azzam explained, referring to the time Cotton was an assistant.

However, when Cotton became the first Black boys basketball coach to to lead Westchester to a City Championship on Feb. 28 at Los Angeles Southwest College he mentor and father figure was not there.

“I just texted him congratulations,” Azzam said, the day after Cotton had led Westchester to a 65-55 Open Division Title over Chatsworth before 2,000 spectators at Southwest.

It took Cotton only 4 years to win one, but it took his mentor 11 years before they captured their first title.

This season it all came together for Cotton and the Westchester basketball program that was written off and declared dead when Azzam retired.

Westchester lost the season opener to Chatsworth and its McDonald’s All American Alijah Arenas 59-55 before spiraling to 0-3, losing 5 of its first 7 and the 6 of its first 8.

The haters returned in embolden form, this time because Westchester had the likes of talented junior sensation Tajh Ariza, the son of former Westchester star Trevor Ariza who went on to UCLA and played 17 years in the NBA.

Cotton never blinked, staying true to himself and his beliefs that the system he learned for so many years from Azzam was always better than any one or two star players. After all, it had been responsible for 15 rings.

Eventually, the players including Ariza bought in, sacrificing their individual goals for the purpose of team success. The pressure defense of bygone years returned, the ball movement on offense, the extra pass and unselfish style of play that was so prominent in the Azzam era was on full display.

“This was all him. I had nothing to do with it, I don’t come to practice and run plays or sets. He’s invited me to come and talk to the team but this system and what he runs in all Dewitt, and I am extremely proud of him,” Azzam beamed.

Similar to the days of John Wooden at UCLA or the days of Willie West at Crenshaw, an iconic figure like Azzam shadow looms large even then they are gone, which is why Azzam purposefully has remained as far away from the program as he could as to give Cotton the respect he deserves.

It is now the respect Cotton has earned as head coach at Westchester, on the heels of a bitter D-1 defeat as to Grant two years ago and an Open Division setback to eventual champion Taft  last season.

As Cotton inhaled it all in, accepting congratulations from assistant coaches and players he lowered his surgical facemask below his chin, a vivid reminder of the COVID era, a point in time that no one will ever forget.

Westchester is on top again, brought along by its favorite son and the son of one of its own. All these people at Southwest College came to see stars Ariza and Arenas and they got more than their money’s worth.

Dewitt Cotton came to win a championship and Westchester got it’s money worth too.