Dixon’s Success Story on SCC Basketball Court Is No Tall Tale

In the spring of 1985, Todd Dixon walked into the office of Southern California College basketball Coach Bill Reynolds and said he would like to try out for the team.

Reynolds had just one question: When are you graduating from high school?

Dixon was already in college .

“That shocked me; he looked like he was 14,” Reynolds said.

Reynolds suggested Dixon play in pickup games at the college during the spring and summer, but he didn’t really think the kid had a future in the program.

At 5-feet 10-inches and barely 150 pounds, Dixon didn’t look much like a college basketball player.

“Deep down, I didn’t think he had a chance,” Reynolds said. “He was too small and too thin. But I didn’t want to discourage him.”

What Reynolds didn’t know was that Dixon couldn’t be discouraged. And never has been.

Dixon has had his mind set on playing basketball since he was a 5-foot freshman at Ocean View High School. He stuck with the game, even though his playing time was limited to games that were blowouts.

His determination has paid off. Dixon, still 5-10 and 150 pounds, is now the starting point guard for SCC. He averages 12 points and 7 assists per game.

“I just love basketball, I’ve played it my whole life,” Dixon said. “I just wanted to keep playing.”

Yet, after graduating from Ocean View in 1984, Dixon figured his days of playing organized basketball were over. He enrolled at Cal State Fullerton as a business major, with plans to become an accountant.

After one semester, Dixon discovered two things--he hated accounting and still loved to play basketball.

“I just didn’t see myself working a 9-to-5 type job,” he said. “I wanted to do something where I would be physically active. I decided that coaching would be my career.”

And he also wanted to give playing one more shot.

The trouble was finding the right place to play, which translated into any place that would let him.

His father, Gary Dixon, and brother-in-law, former Fountain Valley star Roger Holmes, suggested SCC.

After meeting with Reynolds, Dixon got the impression he would have only the spring to prove himself. And even then, the chances were slim.

“I didn’t think Coach Reynolds was too enthusiastic about me coming there,” he said. “The first pickup games, I really didn’t play well. I was just trying too hard to impress the coaches.”

Reynolds was impressed, but not necessarily with Dixon’s abilities.

“He was a real gym rat,” Reynolds said. “Every time we had a pickup game scheduled, Todd would be waiting when we showed up to open the gym. With that type of work ethic, we just couldn’t let him go.”

Dixon played on the junior varsity the next season and began improving his overall game. He worked on his shooting and ballhandling, figuring his best shot was as a point guard.

He began last season as the No. 2 point guard, behind Tom Congdon. Still, Reynolds was not completely convinced.

That changed after the first game of the season.

“In the first game against Redlands, Todd came dribbling down court pretty fast. Todd drove between three guys, who were much bigger, and made the layup,” Reynolds said. “Todd came away with a big smile on his face. I knew then that he was going to make it.”

Against Loyola Marymount in mid-December last season, Dixon came off the bench to get 7 points and 9 assists. He has been a starter ever since.

“You can’t take him out of a game,” said Reynolds, whose team is 10-11 overall and 5-2 in Golden State Athletic Conference play. “He’s like a spinning top. He never gets tired. He’s the reason we’ve been successful this year.”

Dixon has waited a long time to hear those words.

Size, it seems, always was the problem.

“The first time I saw Todd, when he was a freshman, I thought he might be a fifth-grader,” said Jim Harris, Ocean View coach.

Still, Dixon was a starting guard for Ocean View’s freshman team, which finished 21-2 and won the Sunset League championship. He was one of four players on that team who were no taller than 5-0.

Three of them--Dixon, Joe Parco and John Shrake--played together all four years at Ocean View.

“They were outstanding players, but tiny,” Harris said. “That was the only thing holding them back. All they needed was time to grow.”

Dixon did grow. But only six inches between his freshman and senior years. He then grew four more inches the year after he graduated.

He started on the sophomore team, but as a junior he sat on the junior varsity bench.

As a senior, Dixon moved up to the varsity, where he rode the bench again.

“I just like being in the program,” he said. “I got caught up in the team unity concept and being around the guys.

“Like everyone who sits on the bench, I was frustrated and felt I deserved more time than I was getting. But, I could also understand the situation, too. We had a lot of good underclassmen on that team.”

Dixon did get one chance in a game that was close. Against Westminster, Harris sent him into the game with instructions to look to shoot from the outside. Dixon went 0 for 5.

“The first two went in and out and everything else was really off,” he said.

Dixon’s greatest contribution to the Seahawk program may have been his help in the development of Jim Usevitch, who now plays for Brigham Young University.

As a junior, Usevitch, a 6-9 center, lacked ballhandling skills that he would need in college. Harris hit on the idea of using Dixon and Parco, who was also 5-6, to train Usevitch.

“It was like the scene in ‘Rocky II,’ where he has to chase the chickens around to improve his agility,” Dixon said. “Joey and I were the chickens.”

Harris remembers constantly walking into the gymnasium before practice and seeing the three at work.

“It was sort of humorous,” he said. “There Jim was, dribbling the ball, while these two gnats were trying to strip it from him.

“Todd always had that tenacity about him. He wasn’t going to be denied.”

He just needed to grow.

“Hey, I would love to be 6-6, posting guys up,” Dixon said. “But, you play with what you got.”