Dixon comes through again for Terrapins

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© St. Petersburg Times
published April 2, 2002

ATLANTA -- This is how history will remember him. Juan Dixon's eyes are narrow, and his face is twisted into something like fury. His fist is in the air, and his mouth is open in full scream.

Capture the image. Put it in a frame. Hang it on the wall.

From this day forward, this is the face of Maryland basketball.

Dixon took over the world Monday night. He conquered basketball from one baseline to the next. He claimed the court as his, the night as his, the game as his.

From now on, this no longer is Dixieland.

From now on, this is Dixon's land.

The Maryland Terrapins are champions, finally, of college basketball. They have Dixon to thank for it. Even when the ride became turbulent, even when the lead was too slippery to hold, Dixon would not retreat. He was not going to lose, and he was not going to let his teammates lose.

At the darkest of moments, Dixon always has made the darndest of plays. Take a play during the second half of the championship game. Indiana had just gone ahead, erasing an 11-point lead and giving life to the memories of all those other moments that got away from the Terps throughout their history.

Dixon -- who else? -- then made a 3-pointer to give his team the lead back. A moment later, he hit Lonny Baxter under the basket, and Baxter was fouled. After two free throws, Dixon hit another shot. Order was restored. The panic was beaten back.

"You can't have a fear of failure," Maryland coach Gary Williams said. "Not every big scorer wants to take that shot. Juan has never backed down from a big shot. You can't let yourself think about what happens if you miss. We needed to score then. The Indiana crowd was about to get into it. And Juan did what he's done all year."

This is the greatness of Dixon. He puts out fires. He restores calm. With Dixon, it is never simply about how many he scores. It's about when he scores them. It's about the way his teammates look to him when the lead is shrinking and the chaos is building and the veins are popping out of Williams' forehead like garden hoses. When the Terps need Dixon most, he is at his best.

It was that way again Monday night, when Indiana refused to go away. For a long time, the Terps seemed intent on letting the game bounce off their foot. Without Dixon, they probably would have.

Oh, give the Hoosiers credit. They scrapped and clawed, and they demonstrated again why the race does not always go to the swift. By far, Maryland's players have more individual skills. But team sports are not about individual skills. They are about one team maximizing what it can do while minimizing what the other team does. They are about confidence and composure and competitiveness.

Indiana had all of that.

Maryland, on the other hand, had Dixon.

Because of that, they have a title.

This was the moment Dixon had been building toward, and the one he will be remembered for. No more can you joke about how hard the Terps look to find a way to lose. Dixon gave the program a new face, that of a warrior pushing himself toward excellence because anything less is too intolerable to consider.

"This means a lot," Dixon said. "It's like I'm dreaming. There were a lot of people back home who counted me out, who didn't give me a chance."

Always, Dixon has turned to the court to prove himself. The court has been a refuge for Dixon. When he was heartbroken, he would retreat there. When he was angry or frustrated or lonely or miserable, he lose himself in the simplicity of a ball bouncing against his fingers.

It was the basketball court that gave him peace, that gave him counsel. When he was a kid, waiting in the car as his parents went to purchase drugs, he went to the court to forget. When he would find their drug paraphernalia and toss it into the trash, he went to the court for comfort. When his parents died 13 months apart from AIDS they contracted from dirty needles, the court provided solace.

The pain of his life turned basketball into an obsession for Dixon. Life always made more sense on the court. It was a place where rules applied, where you could count on order instead of chaos. He would spend hours there, often alone. He used to lie on the court, his back flat against the floor, stare at the ceiling and imagine moments such as this.

The court belonged to him Monday night. Of course it did. Who else was going to lay claim to it? On this, the biggest night of his career, who was going to take it away?

Dane Fife tried. Fife, the Indiana guard, is part basketball player, part pit bull, and he's harder on scorers than a viral infection. He leaned on Dixon, and he banged against him, and he hounded him. Yes, he slowed Dixon to only nine shots and 18 points.

But in the big moment, there he was.

"If you're going to win a championship, your best players have to make great plays," Indiana coach Mike Davis said. "Down the stretch, he did."

Dixon is 200 pounds of heart stuffed into a 165-pound body, all fast forward and fearless. He was the toughest kid on the floor, one of those athletes whose body language suggests that no matter what sport you choose, he will beat you. Odd to think there was a time when Williams was chided for recruiting a kid who looked so skinny, so frail. From now on, Dixon is the Maryland player the rest will be compared with. Not Buck Williams or Tom McMillen or Len Bias or John Lucas. Dixon, champion.

For Maryland, he always has been the answer. Why were the Terps able to hang on?

The answer lies deep in the heart of Dixon.

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