David Singleton joined eSports in January 2004. He works and resides in the Greater Las Vegas area with his wife, Jane and their two cats. David covers college football and other general sports topics. He has a Master of Science in Education from Illinois State University and a Bachelor of Arts in Communication from the University of Missouri-Columbia.You can e-mail him at: dave.singleton@yahoo.com.
Army Women's Basketball Coach Maggie Dixon passed away Thursday. The Dixon family lost someone close to their hearts. College basketball lost a potentially great coach.
In times of tragedy, it can be hard to find the words to comfort others.
We all go through a certain amount of pain, of ache, when we lose someone close to us. Whether it is a colleague, a peer, a friend, a family member... the ache is present. You can feel it, taste it and touch it.
The pain is not the same for each category. It all depends on the nature of the relationship.
But imagine losing someone who is all of those things: A colleague, a peer, a friend, a family member that you are extremely close to.
Imagine being Jamie Dixon, Pitt’s men’s basketball coach, today. He lost that person yesterday.
Jamie’s sister, Maggie -- who had just completed her first year as the coach of the Army women’s basketball team -- died yesterday after suffering a heart arrhythmia. She was only 28 years old.
Maggie Dixon led the Black Knights to their first ever Patriot League championship this season, compiling a 20-11 record in the process. Army also made its first ever NCAA tournament appearance, losing to Tennessee in the first round.
Not bad for a young woman that took over the program just 11 days before the start of season.
It is believed that Jamie and Maggie were the first brother-sister duo to coach in their respective NCAA tournaments in the same season. Yet they were more than just brother and sister. They were close friends as well, talking on the phone quite often. Whenever Jamie Dixon was in New York recruiting, he would stop by to see his little sister. In fact, Jamie saw Maggie on Wednesday morning, just hours before she collapsed.
"Maggie touched so many people beyond basketball," Jamie Dixon said in a statement Friday. "Our family has received an outpouring of sympathy from across the country and we are deeply appreciative. As her older brother I know she looked up to me. But I always looked up to her, too, and it's obvious that a lot of other people did as well."
The superintendent of West Point, Lt. General William Lennox, said that the West Point community is heartbroken.
The lasting image I have of Maggie Dixon is the photo of her after the Black Knights had won the Patriot League championship. The fans rushed the court, and wound up placing Maggie on their shoulders, as if she were a conquering hero.
She brought success to a team that hadn’t seen it before, a program that was in a bit of turmoil. Let’s be honest; there aren’t too many stable programs that are searching for a new coach less than two weeks before the start of the season.
However, if she could build a winner at Army, if she could turn that team around in one season, who knows what she could have done? This was her first head coaching job. She should have had at least another 40 years of coaching ahead of her.
That is why her death is so shocking and so sad. Twenty-eight year olds are not supposed to die from heart trouble. Especially not when the 28-year old in question has as much potential as she did.
Life works in mysterious ways. But I wouldn’t say that to the Dixon family. Their loss is too great.