the toughest loss of all

Some three weeks ago I tuned in to watch a first-round game in the women’s NCAA basketball tournament. A Parade Magazine All-American plays in my backyard and she will play college basketball at Tennessee in a couple years, so I wanted to watch legendary coach Pat Summitt’s Volunteers play Army.

But I also wanted to see Army.

The Black Knights were capping a storybook season under a first-year coach named Maggie Dixon, the 28-year-old sister of Pittsburgh coach Jamie Dixon. Dixon was hired to coach at West Point just a few days before the start of fall practice and, in her first head coaching job, won 20 games and accomplished something no other coach at the United States Military Academy had ever done: reached the NCAA women’s tournament.

I’d read about her and immediately liked her. I liked her style. I loved her passion.

I just couldn’t watch the game.

Sixth-ranked Tennessee had been overlooked as a No. 1 seed and the team was determined to send a message to the seeding committee by beating up on Army. The Volunteers, one of the storied programs in all of basketball, used Army as a whipping boy – even dunking twice over the Black Knights. They put a bitter ending to Army’s storybook season.

I don’t like it when teams do that. Tennessee claimed they had been disrespected by the NCAA, and in showing how indignant they were at not being a No. 1 seed then disrespected the women of West Point – women who will soon go off to serve as officers in the Army of the United States of America.

You don’t protest one injustice by disrespecting an opponent; you protest by going out and winning championships – by beating the team seeded ahead of you, not one seeded 13 slots below you. Figuratively and literally, it’s beneath you as a stellar program.

I thought it was a logical motivating tool for Pat Summitt to use, but I thought running up a score of 102-54 against an obviously weaker opponent making its first appearance was not worthy of such an incredible coach.

At the same time, I knew this was a defining moment for Maggie Dixon. This was a game she would turn into a positive for both the women’s basketball program at West Point and in her long, successful life as a college basketball coach.

And then came the news yesterday that Maggie Dixon had collapsed and was in critical condition following a heart arrhythmia. This morning came the news that she had died.

I’ve been a sportswriter now for more than 25 years, and in that time, you come to know people like Maggie Dixon. I don’t know her personally, but I know her. And the news of her death leaves me with a sense of great loss.

People like Maggie Dixon live life with a great sense of passion. They focus all their talent and intensity and passion on their corner of the world and they make it better.

It’s a cliché, but it’s also true. People like Maggie Dixon make those around them better. As a teammate, she makes you a better player. As a coach, she makes you a better person.

I’ve met a number of people like Maggie Dixon, but there are never enough of them.

The world is a poorer place without her. Even for those of us who never got the chance to know her personally.

More soon.