Tuesday, December 16, 2008

First time shooting @ MSG

Finally had the chance to shoot at Madison Square Garden. That's right I made it to MSG!!!

Three years ago West Point started a tournament to honor Maggie Dixon. In 2005, just 11 days before the 2005-2006 season, Dixon was hired as the women's basketball coach of the United States Military Academy. In her first year, they surprised the college basketball world by going 20-11 and winning the Patriot League conference tournament; she took them to 2006 NCAA Women's Division I Basketball Tournament as a 15 seed, where they lost to the University of Tennessee, 102-54. It was the first March Madness tournament appearance for any Army basketball team.

Her brother was Jamie Dixon, the head men's basketball coach of the University of Pittsburgh. In 2006, the Dixons became the first brother-sister pair to take teams to the NCAA basketball tournaments the same year, as Jamie's Pittsburgh Panthers also made the 2006 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament. Her brother lost in the second round to Bradley.

Just weeks after her appearance in the tournament, on April 5, 2006, Dixon was hospitalized at Westchester Medical Center in Valhalla, New York, after collapsing and suffering what her brother described as an "arrhythmic episode to her heart." Dixon died the next night at the age of only 28, a little over a month shy of her 29th birthday. An autopsy revealed that Dixon had an enlarged heart and had a problem with a heart valve.

Dixon was buried at the West Point Cemetery, an honor usually reserved only for high ranking officials.

On November 12, 2006 West Point held the 1st Annual Maggie Dixon Classic, a basketball mini-tournament in Dixon's honor. It featured two games, a men's and women's game. In the men's game Jamie Dixon's Pitt Panthers defeated Western Michigan and in the women's game the Army women's team lost to Ohio State. The games were televised by ESPNU.

In the 2007-2008 season the Classic moved to Madison Square Garden and featured the University of Pittsburgh women's team against Duke University and Army and the Rutgers Scarlet Knights

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