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Margaret Mary Dixon (May 9, 1977 – April 6, 2006) was an American collegiate women's basketball coach.
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 NCAA tournament appearance for any Army basketball team.
Her brother is Jamie Dixon, the head men's basketball coach at Texas Christian University. 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.
Doug Bruno changed his flight plans to fly to New York to see his former assistant. She was still alive when Bruno arrived, but she died the following day from what her brother described as an "arrhythmic episode to her heart." Dixon died a little over a month shy of her 29th birthday. An autopsy revealed that Dixon had an Cardiomegaly and had a problem with a heart valve.
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 against the Rutgers Scarlet Knights.
The third Maggie Dixon Classic was again played at MSG and featured the UConn Huskies and Penn State Nittany Lions along with an RU/Army Rematch. The presence of UConn helped draw upwards of 10,000 fans.
The 2009 Maggie Dixon Classic featured games between Baylor and Boston College and between perennial women's basketball powerhouses Rutgers and Tennessee.
The 2010 Maggie Dixon Classic pitted the Rutgers Scarlet Knights against the Texas A&M Aggies, and the Connecticut Huskies against the Ohio State Buckeyes.
The Maggie Dixon Surf 'N Slam Classic is played at Dixon's alma mater, University of San Diego, and has featured such schools as Boston College, DePaul, University of Texas, and University of California in recent years. The University of San Diego Toreros won the tournament in 2008 and 2009.
The inaugural award was given to Krista Kilburn-Steveskey of Hofstra University and the 2007–2008 award was given to Jeff Walz of the University of Louisville. The 2008–2009 recipient was Kelly Packard of Ball State University.
The 2009–2010 season clarified the award by excluding former professional coaches moving to D1 (two early candidates were Men's coaching great and WNBA champion Paul Westhead at Oregon and 2 time WNBA champion Michael Cooper at USC). The award went to playing great Teresa Weatherspoon despite her coaching several games for Louisiana Tech in 2009 as an interim head coach. She won the Western Athletic Conference tournament returning the Lady Techsters to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in five seasons.
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