Juan Dixon’s title nowadays is Coppin State head men’s basketball coach, but he will forever be known as “former Maryland star,” too. And there was the hero of the Terps’ 2002 national championship team on late Monday night, sitting in sweats on a wooden bench in the visiting locker room at Morgan State’s Hill Field House, munching on a Subway sandwich and chips, voice a little hoarse from a cold. “I’m not feeling too well,” he said, and no doubt the final score from the game that just transpired—Morgan 69, Coppin 56—didn’t help the mood either.

But the 39-year-old Dixon, who is in his first season leading the Coppin program, perked up when asked about the atmosphere Monday. More than 4,000 fans in Morgan’s gym, many waving inflatable thunder sticks. The band rocked. Students danced in the crowd during every timeout of the 89th match-up between the schools.

“It was a great atmosphere,” Dixon told Baltimore. “I loved it. I enjoyed every second of it. I wish our guys would embrace it a little bit more and have fun with it. But it happens. We’re a young team. We’re getting better. This is mostly everyone’s first time experiencing this.”

This was a city rivalry game, played about a 20-minute drive away from home (and where Dixon was born and raised)—in front of a crowd, and against a team, that didn’t forget what happened last time around on Coppin’s West Baltimore campus: an overtime win for Dixon’s crew, one of their only five victories this year.

It wasn’t as close this time. Morgan senior guard Tiwian Kendley scored 27 points Monday, including 20 in the first half as the Bears (11-17, 7-8 Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference) built a comfortable lead that grew to 63-39 midway through the second half. Senior forward Phillip Carr added 12 points and 14 rebounds. Junior forward Cedric Council led Coppin (5-25, 5-10 MEAC) with 12 points.

“It was a great team win, a great win for the crowd,” Kendley said.

And much needed. Two days earlier, Morgan coach Todd Bozeman pulled his team from the floor in a game at Hampton University after the coach and forward David Syfax were ejected after multiple technical fouls, and the Bears forfeited. This was Morgan’s first win in two weeks and—heading into its final game of the regular season Thursday at Delaware State and MEAC tournament play, which begins Monday—showed promise for a team that was the conference’s preseason favorite.

Coppin will be in Norfolk, Virginia, for the postseason, too, for a last hurrah in a laying-the-groundwork year under its new coach. The Eagles are expected to return four of their top five scorers, including Baltimore CC transfer forward Chad Andrews-Fulton, and lose only three players from this year’s roster.

“It’s been an up and down season,” said Dixon, who played seven years in the NBA. “But I’m excited about the direction we’re going. Our guys showed that they got better as the year progressed. We’re going to add some pieces next year, bring some guys back, and we look forward to having a much, much better season next year. But we’re still focused on this season. We have one more game against Howard [on Thursday] and we’re confident going into the tournament.”

Juan Dixon had seen enough. It was early November, four days before his undersized Coppin State University men’s basketball team was to begin its season with what was essentially a lambs-to-the-slaughter game at the University of Oregon. Five minutes before practice was supposed to end, Coppin’s first-year coach was so over his players’ whining and complaining that, with a curt shriek of his whistle followed by a few choice words, he kicked them off the court.

Like teenagers (which some of them are) being dismissed from the dinner table for bad behavior, they lowered their heads and quietly shuffled into the locker room. The scene was reminiscent of a tactic another local coach employed more than once, only back then, there was a lot more sweat on the court.

“Juan was a great practice player,” says former University of Maryland coach and prolific perspirer Gary Williams, whose bond with Dixon helped both reach legendary heights in college basketball. “Some guys try to take it easy in practice. Even if it was a two-on-two drill, if [we were] scrimmaging, you better not make calls that hurt his team, because he would get very upset. He knew only one way to play.”

Dixon’s goal is to infuse the grittiness and determination he used to propel himself from a challenging childhood in West Baltimore to the NCAA championship at Maryland into the young, raw Coppin program. It’s a risky marriage for both. Dixon has only one season of head coaching experience, a 3-25 campaign last year with the University of the District of Columbia’s women’s team. Coppin is coming off an 8-24 season and has a roster that includes just two seniors.  
“Right now, I’ve got to be patient and know that things are going to get turned around because of the culture that we’re building,” Dixon says. “All I want from our guys is to give constant effort no matter what the scoreboard says.”

In an ironic twist, Dixon has become a father figure to 13 young men at the same time he’s relearning how to be a son. United with his biological father—whom he didn’t know existed—just 18 months ago, the 39-year-old Dixon is beginning the second act of his life at a time when many men his age are settling into the routine of theirs. Dealing with that avalanche of change won’t be easy, but nothing ever has been for Juan Dixon.

Basketball fans of a certain age have heard the story many times. During Maryland’s Final Four runs in 2001 and 2002, the media eagerly recounted how the Terrapins’ undersized star, Juan Dixon, grew up near Liberty Heights Avenue and Garrison Boulevard as the son of drug-addicted parents who passed away from AIDS when he was a teenager. As far as Dixon knew, it was true.

Phil and Juanita Dixon began dating at a young age, and their relationship was fraught with breakups and makeups. Both were heroin users, and during Juan and his two brothers’ formative years he relied on a network of aunts (including former Baltimore mayor Sheila Dixon), uncles, cousins, and friends for support while his parents battled—and ultimately succumbed to—their addictions.

“It was unfortunate circumstances,” Dixon says. “Parents not always being around because of their lifestyle. At times it was rough, but at the same time, I had a loving supportive family of extended relatives who really stepped up when it came to helping us develop as boys into men.”

Coaches played an outsized role in Dixon’s youth, particularly Mark Amatucci at Calvert Hall College High School. There Dixon forged the hard-nosed playing style that ultimately caught the attention of Maryland’s Williams, who fell in love with the wiry guard when he saw him dive for a ball with his team down by 20 points. “That’s when I made up my mind that we wanted him to play for Maryland,” Williams says. “The gym wasn’t air-conditioned, they probably weren’t going to win, and Juan still went after the ball. That convinced me that he was going to outwork some people.”

In College Park, Dixon’s production, if not his six-foot-three-inch stature, grew every year.

“There was never a doubt in his mind as to what he could accomplish,” says his ex-wife Robyn, whom he met in high school. “I always believed in him. But there would be times when I would be like, ‘Okay, do you know you’re 145 pounds?’” He was a beefy 164 when he led Maryland to its first and only men’s basketball national title in 2002. Months later, the Washington Wizards chose him in the first round of the NBA draft, and he had a solid, if not spectacular, career in the league and overseas. In 2010, it was announced that Dixon tested positive for the steroid nandrolone while playing for a Spanish team, and the International Basketball Federation suspended him for a year. He then signed with Banvit in Turkey, where he only played for one season before suffering a knee injury.

“I’ve been through the storm and I’m still trekking through the storm today,” Dixon told University of Maryland’s Capital News Service in 2012. “But I’m working hard every day.”

Dixon took that work ethic and turned his attention to coaching, serving as a special assistant on Mark Turgeon’s staff at Maryland before, according to the university, he and the school mutually parted ways after the 2016 season.
 
“I learned a lot from Coach Turgeon and his staff,” he says. “Recruiting, how to run a program. I appreciate everything he has done for me. But leaving Maryland was the best thing that ever happened to me.”

Make that the second best.   
 
On September 1, 2016, two strangers walked into the Bass Pro Shops at Arundel Mills. The moment they laid eyes on one another, they knew it was true. The night before, Dixon had called Bruce Flanigan for the first time. Through a number of only-in-Baltimore coincidences, Dixon had heard that Flanigan believed he was Juan’s father.

“I said, ‘Juan, I don’t know where to begin,’” Flanigan recalls. “Then I told him the whole story.”

In the 1970s, Flanigan dated Dixon’s mother, Juanita, who became pregnant. The two broke up before she had the baby, which she told Flanigan wasn’t his. “I went on with my life,” says Flanigan, now 61. “I got married and raised my family. She went on and did what she had to do. Years went by. Then I started hearing about this guy at Maryland, Juan Dixon, and they kept talking about his mom, Juanita.”

When Flanigan first watched the young Terp play on television, he was struck by the physical resemblance. Although he immediately believed he was Dixon’s father, he held back, paralyzed by guilt at not being there for his son. Plus, he didn’t want the budding superstar to believe he was moving in to take advantage of his fame and impending fortune. But over the ensuing years, rumors began to circulate through the tight-knit West Baltimore community and eventually, the two got in touch.

When they met the day after the phone call, the connection was immediate. “His mannerisms, the way he spoke—I sounded like him,” Dixon says. “I could just tell by being around him, his energy, that he was my dad. It was like 38 years didn’t mean anything.”

They did a DNA test and, within two weeks, it confirmed what they already knew. “When we first connected visually, it was like we had been in each other’s lives from day one—from the time he was born,” Flanigan says. “We didn’t miss a beat. It was like gravity had pulled us together.”

Improbably, the men have forged a rich relationship that’s both father-son and best friend. They text or talk nearly every day, and Flanigan, who lives in Pennsylvania, drives down often to visit his newfound family. Dixon lives with Robyn and their sons Corey, 9, and Carter, 8, in Howard County. As is depicted on the reality show The Real Housewives of Potomac, on which Robyn costars and Juan has occasionally appeared, their relationship is, shall we say, complicated. Married for seven years, they divorced in 2012, but still live together with their kids.

“We truly are a family, no matter what our romantic status is,” Robyn says. “It’s great when you can have a relationship with someone and you want the best for them and you understand that supporting them and being there with them doesn’t just help him, it helps me, it helps my kids, because we’re family.”

Wearing black Nikes, gray sweatpants, and a black-and-yellow long-sleeve Coppin T-shirt, Dixon now actually is sweating as he lingers near the three-point line, taking part in a drill with his team. He’s still lean and fast, and sports the same goatee and short-cropped haircut he wore during his playing days.
Dixon has incredibly big shoes to fill. Ronald “Fang” Mitchell, who left in 2014 after coaching for nearly 30 years at Coppin, brought the team to four NCAA tournaments and won 10 conference titles.

But Coppin athletic director Derek Carter, who hired Dixon in April, says he was captivated by the former guard’s “passion and tenacity.” Being tenacious has always defined Dixon, and he wants it to epitomize his team as well. To him, it means playing suffocating defense and unleashing unwavering effort for all 40 minutes.

Before he prematurely ended that practice in November (“Tell Juan now he knows why I did it to his team,” Williams says), he was relentlessly energetic, clapping his hands emphatically when he felt his players’ focus was waning, pausing drills to point out both positive plays and mistakes, and urging his guys to communicate with and support one another.

“Coach is trying to change the culture,” says senior Tre’ Thomas. “He’s trying to teach us a different kind of basketball.”

On a plane that can’t be measured by wins and losses (Coppin, predictably, dropped its first eight games, all on the road against upper-tier competition), Dixon believes his message is getting through. He was even pleased with his team’s defensive effort in the 16-point loss to Oregon.

Dixon’s life has always centered around defying expectations, giving a team, a player, or a father a second chance.

“I was born and raised five minutes from Coppin, so for me to get this opportunity—we will take advantage of it,” he says. “To be able to drive down Gwynns Falls and pull up to work, it’s a dream come true.”

No one said it was going to be easy.

Coppin State University forward Chad Andrews-Fulton scored a team-high 19 points in Monday’s thrilling double-overtime win over Florida A&M at Coppin’s PEC Arena. None more important than his layup with 12 seconds to go, which put the Eagles in front 79-78 and lifted Coppin to their first win of the season after 17 straight losses. 

The victory for the Coppin men is the first under the tenure of new coach and hometown hero Juan Dixon, who starred at Calvert Hall College High School and led the University of Maryland to national title in 2002. 

Drafted by the Washington Wizards, Dixon eventually played in the NBA and then Europe before starting his coaching career with the Terps under Mark Turgeon. Last year, in his first head-coaching gig, Dixon directed the University of the District of Columbia’s women’s team to 3-25 mark. The Coppin men also struggled last year, coming off an 8-24 record. And, in fact, Coppin’s winless mark before this week had been 20 games, dating back to last season, and the longest in the country, according to the Baltimore Sun.   

Dixon replaced Michael Grant, who had been at the helm for three seasons. Now it’s up to Dixon to try and fill the shoes of local legend Fang Mitchell, who previously led the Eagles for nearly three decades, posting 11 consecutive winning seasons during one stretch and four NCAA Tournament appearances.

Despite the early struggles this season, if anyone possesses the resiliency to turn around the Coppin season—and program—it might just be Dixon.

The undersized former guard has overcome obstacles his whole life, including losing both of his parents to AIDS when he was a teenager. 

After two MEAC conference games in North Carolina, Coppin returns to Baltimore Jan. 20 and hosts Morgan State.

Check Baltimore magazine’s story on Dixon—his reconnection to his Baltimore roots, reunion with his father, and hire at Coppin State—in our February issue.

Ravens make a wish come true.
The best moment of the draft, bar none? Nope, it wasn’t when San Francisco tricked Chicago into swapping picks (and getting a third and fourth round pick in the bargain). It was when McDonogh 8th grader T. J. Onwuanibe stepped up to the podium to announce the Ravens pick, punctuating his excitement with a fist pump. Onwuanibe was diagnosed with a rare form of brain cancer two years ago and this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity was provided by the Ravens and the NFL in conjunction with the Make-a-Wish Foundation. At the podium, T.J. was poised and adorable. (He also did the nearly impossible, getting the Philly crowd to stop booing NFL commissioner Roger Goodell.) Better still? T.J.’s cancer is officially in remission! Kudos to all involved. We’ve never been prouder to be part of the Ravens Flock.

Ozzie gets his man.
In something of a surprise, Ravens used their 16th pick in the draft to take Alabama cornerback Marlon Humphrey. This move is particularly unexpected, since the Ravens signed free agent corner Brandon Carr in the off season. But considering the fact that the Ravens’ secondary has been a major concern since Ed Reed left the team, we have no objections. Also, Humphrey is stupid fast (he’s a former track star), has a great family lineage (his dad was Alabama All-American Bobby Humphrey), and he sports a fun, if mysterious Twitter handle, “Fruit PUNCH.” We can smell the sugary fan giveaways already.

ESPN lays off a bunch of employees.
Proof that even the World Wide Leader in Sports is not immune to the new ways people consume sports entertainment and news, ESPN laid off 100 staffers on Wednesday, including many popular on-air talents. Among them was QB Trent Dilfer, who parlayed his solid, if modest game-management skills into a Super Bowl victory for the Ravens in 2001. As an ESPN analyst, he was fiery and opinionated but might sadly be best remembered for the classic: “You cannot lose games in the NFL and still win.” Yes, he really said that.

“Laid off by ESPN today,” Dilfer tweeted, echoing the sentiments of many who were let go. “Although sad cause I loved my job, mostly filed w/ gratitude and appreciation for the 9 years.”

Also let go was college basketball analyst Len Elmore, a Maryland great.

Juan Dixon in as new Coppin Coach
Juan Dixon, beloved Terps star and nephew of former Mayor Sheila Dixon, has just landed the head coaching position at Coppin State. Dixon’s career has had some ups and downs since he led the Terps to their only NCAA Championship in 2002—including a brief stint in the NBA and an embarrassing suspension for steroid use from the International Basketball League in 2010. But this hiring manages to be a great opportunity for both Coppin and Dixon, who is still a huge, high profile draw in Baltimore and will surely help with recruiting. Dixon’s ex-wife, Real Housewives of Potomac star Robyn Dixon, with whom he is still very close, expressed her support for Juan on social media. “I really can’t express how proud I am of Juan for believing in himself and staying confident and faithful that one day his dream of leading a Division one men’s basketball team would come true,” she wrote. No word on whether or not Coppin State players will be making a Real Housewive‘s cameo. 

Orioles on a roll.
At 14-6, the Orioles are on top of the AL East and one of the most exciting teams in all of the majors, with a penchant for come from behind wins. (Like this. And this. And this.) Like all good teams, they take advantage of other teams’ mistakes, like this doozy from Wednesday’s game against the Rays.