Pojoaque Valley hires 2017 graduate, former player Roybal as boys basketball coach

Life came full circle for Dominic Roybal on Friday evening.

Roybal's senior year nearly a decade ago as a member of the Pojoaque Valley boys basketball program saw him face the gauntlet of power teams that is District 2-3A. When he steps on the floor as the head coach of his alma mater for the 2026-27 season, Roybal will again face those powerhouse teams.

Roybal was announced as the Elks head coach, replacing Ryan Cordova after three seasons and a 45-39 record. He also returns to a program that will return to Class 3A next year after spending the past eight seasons in 4A.

Roybal, a 2017 graduate, said it feels appropriate that he will find his team battling St. Michael's, Santa Fe Indian School, West Las Vegas and Las Vegas Robertson once again.

"It feels just like when I graduated high school," Roybal said. "That was my district, and now that I'm coming back, it's to the same district. And that district is always competitive."

He takes over a program that went 14-15 in 2025-26 and lost to Albuquerque Hope Christian in the first round of the 4A bracket after leading for most of the first three quarters.

Pojoaque athletic director Sean Jimenez said Roybal's résumé spoke volumes, as he was a walk-on player at New Mexico State University and also had assistant coaching stints at Las Cruces Mayfield in 2021-22 and Los Alamos in 2024-25, along with coaching experience in the club circuit.

Jimenez said Roybal's ties to the program, as well as his organizational and communication skills, were impressive. It resonated with the players on the search committee.

Jimenez pointed out that Roybal's full-time job as a research and development engineer at Los Alamos National Laboratory, which he will continue, helped with those skills.

"He said they're going to be about building a culture," Jimenez said. "It's one thing to say you're going to build culture and you're going to do X, Y and Z. But to be about the culture, that's what you do every day. That's what impressed us."

Roybal said coaching allows him to work on teaching and development, and he knew many of the Elks who were on the current squad, as he coached them during the club season.

"I'm really excited to develop and teach some new stuff to them, or just teach it in a different way," Roybal said. "And then to connect and build something from there, that's interesting."

Roybal and Jimenez both have similar connections. They both were a part of college programs (Jimenez was a part of the UNM basketball program in the mid-2000s) and both got their first head coaching jobs at their high school alma mater (Jimenez was at Albuquerque Rio Grande from 2010-16).

Jimenez said he had no influence on Roybal's hire, saying the committee of nine people came to the decision. He did not mention the other candidates who interviewed for the job Thursday, but he said the pool was strong.