“That wasn’t an easy night.”
Juan Dixon was only a boy when he discovered his mom’s “tools” – the ones she used to get high – hidden in the drop ceiling of their basement.
After showing them to his grandmother, they both agreed to throw them in the trash.
But when his mom got home, all hell broke loose.
“Where are my tools?!” she yelled, rummaging through the house.
She needed her fix, and the drugs were nowhere to be found.
“That was hard to watch,” Juan said.
“Knowing that I’m the reason why she’s not feeling okay…her screaming and her yelling…that wasn’t an easy moment…[but] I felt like we were protecting my mother.”
Growing up in Baltimore in the 1980s presented its own set of problems. But for Juan, it was even more complicated.
Born in 1978, he grew up with both of his parents addicted to heroin.
By the time he was 17 years old, both his mother, Juanita Dixon, and his father, Phil Dixon II, passed away almost a year apart as the result of HIV from dirty needles.
Although Juanita and Phil were known just to be social users, friends say that their lives quickly took a turn for the worse.
Once the addiction took hold, they went to great lengths to keep it going.
Juanita got caught for petty theft and Phil was pulling scams at the airport where he worked.
“Yes, our parents were addicts, but they weren’t bad parents,” Juan’s brother, Phil Dixon III, told ESPN.
“The worst thing we had to do was sit in the car and wait for them to go buy their drugs and come back. Sometimes, it’d be two hours and I’d take it out on Juan and [our sister] Nicole. I’d cuss at them. I mean, sitting in one spot for so long can be annoying. But they wouldn’t have left us alone if we couldn’t handle it.”
Not long after his parents’ funerals, Juan felt a pull toward the wrong path. A man approached him to join a drug ring.
“This guy said, ‘Come sling some drugs. Make some easy money. Come work with me.’ And I passed it up,” Juan said.
“I just wanted to lead a good life.”
After moving in with his grandparents, Warnick and Roberta Graves, Dixon had a solid support system and a somewhat stable home to rely on: numerous aunts and uncles and, most importantly, his brother Phil.
But that stability didn’t replace the fact that he’d lost both his parents at a young age.
Juan felt most at home on the basketball court, which proved to be an escape from his reality.
“Basketball saved me.”
Although he stood just 6’0” and weighed less than 160 pounds, he proved that he had the skills to hold his own against the best high school players in Baltimore.
During his time playing for the Calvert Hall Cardinals, Juan finished his high school career with 1,590 points.
Armed with a deadly jumper and an unrelenting work ethic, he grabbed the attention of Maryland Terrapins head coach Gary Williams.
While he failed to get significant national attention as a college recruit, Juan accepted an athletic scholarship to Maryland.
He was determined to prove his doubters wrong.
There was just one problem: his SAT scores were too low.
So during the fall after high school graduation, Juan worked a minimum-wage job at the Inner Harbor during the day – handing out dock passes and tying up boats – and spent his nights cramming for another shot at the SATs.
On his fourth and final try, he nailed it and officially enrolled at Maryland in the middle of basketball season.
Coming off the bench as a freshman, he averaged 7 ppg, 2 rpg, and 1.5 apg in just under 15 minutes per night.
With determination, grit, and hard work, those numbers improved each season.
His coaches still remember those late-night shooting sessions when Juan would ask them to keep the gym open.
“You know how you get an urge for a candy bar at 2 a.m.?” said Phil Dixon, “Juan would get an urge to shoot at 2 a.m.”
As a sophomore, Dixon cracked the Terps’ starting lineup and never left for the remaining 107 games of his college career.
One of the best two-way players in the college ranks, his senior year capped everything off in storybook fashion.
Averaging 20.4 ppg, Juan was the driving force behind Maryland’s first-ever NCAA Championship, earning the Most Outstanding Player honors along the way.
“I wish I could have my parents here to see how far I’ve come, but unfortunately, they’re not here,” Juan said then.
“So I’m just going to go out there and have fun. I’m having fun with everything. My mom and dad would want me to have fun right now and I’m out there just having a lot of fun and enjoying the chance.”
Despite everything he overcame to reach the pinnacle of college basketball, people still questioned his abilities.
While he had a piece of the NCAA championship net and a Most Outstanding Player trophy to his credit, there were still many who wondered if Dixon’s game would translate to the NBA.
Not a pure point guard and too small to be a shooting guard, the question simply came down to, “Where will Dixon fit in?”
But Gary Wiliams had little doubt that his star player could succeed at the next level.
“What Juan did this year was remarkable,” the Hall of Fame coach said.
“He was the best player in the NCAA Tournament, and he proved it as a marked man. His ball handling has improved every year…and he has played and defeated players that are playing in the NBA right now.”
Thankfully, the Washington Wizards thought enough of his heart, determination, and skillset to select him with the 17th pick in the 2002 NBA Draft.
In an NBA career that spanned four teams, seven seasons, and 436 games, Dixon averaged 8.4 points, 1.9 rebounds, and 1.8 assists.
Before hanging up his kicks for good, he spent the next three seasons overseas playing in Greece, Spain, and Turkey.
Five years after retiring from basketball, Juan’s personal story took a surprising turn.
After spending his entire life not knowing he existed, Juan was introduced to his biological father, Bruce Flanigan.
“They immediately hugged,” said Juan’s wife, Robyn.
“And Juan was very emotional…we could tell he was a good man, and he was very sincere about wanting to be a father to Juan. He wants to really be a part of Juan’s life. So it was amazing.”
The two hit it off almost immediately and developed a close relationship.
After returning stateside, Dixon went back to Maryland, joining the Terrapins’ coaching staff for three seasons. Then he became a head coach, first at the University of the District of Columbia’s Women’s team and then as the bench boss of the Coppin State Eagles.
From an overlooked high school player to an NCAA champion and a first-round NBA Draft pick, Dixon’s journey proves that greatness isn’t just about talent, but the grit to persevere.
“People always told me what I couldn’t do. They said I was too small to play high school basketball. All I did was work hard. I wanted to prove the naysayers wrong every day.”
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