Marcus Dixon
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I don't know any of these guys. Had to look them up. Dixon is 36 and has 4 years of coaching experience, all on the college level and all at Hampton University in Hampton, Virginia which is also his alma mater.
With no bitterness, Marcus Dixon moves on living the good life
By DAVE JOHNSON
THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT |
SEP 22, 2019 AT 9:03 AM
Marcus Dixon’s 442nd night behind bars was, for the most part, no different than the previous 441. Yet for whatever reason, he couldn’t shake an uneasy feeling that something was up.
Hoping to burn off some nervous energy, he volunteered to take another inmate’s detail and buffed the floors. He might have dozed off for a couple of minutes here and there, but he never fell into a deep sleep.
Dixon’s 443rd day began as routine dictated until he was told the warden had requested his presence. According to SOP, the prisoner is taken there in handcuffs and stands the entire time. But he wasn’t cuffed, and he was asked to take a seat.
“Have you talked to your parents yet?” the warden asked.
“No, sir,” Dixon answered.
“I think you need to call them,” the warden said.
Dixon feared the worst, that someone in his family was sick or had died. Instead, after reaching his parents on the phone, he was told that after 15 long months, he was finally coming home.
On May 3, 2004, the Supreme Court of Georgia overturned a felony conviction that sent Dixon to prison for what could have been 15 years. The same judge who had pronounced that sentence ordered him released — immediately.
Suddenly, that sleepless night made sense to him.
“To this day,” he said, “I know it was the Lord was telling me ‘You’re never going to sleep in prison again.’”
Now 35, Dixon is married with two daughters. He’s a college graduate and former NFL player. And he’s a busy man as Hampton University’s defensive ends coach, director of player development, and recruiting coordinator.
He’s been told it was only natural to feel bitter. Toward the girl he contends lied by accusing him of rape. Toward the prosecutor he believes misapplied a law that was meant for sexual predators.
But Dixon had already lost enough. He just wanted to move on.
A future interrupted
Glenda Dixon, Marcus’ mother, was 15 years old when he was born. His father was never in the picture. In his early years, Marcus was raised by his maternal grandparents, Glenda Reynolds and Elijah Booket.
Then, when he was about 10, Kenneth and Peri Jones entered his life.
Kenneth was coaching a Little League All-Star team, and Dixon was one of his players. The Joneses paid his tournament fees, and he stayed in their home. He shared a bedroom with their biological son, Casey, who was the same age.
Soon, Dixon asked the Joneses to adopt him. They agreed without hesitation and became his legal guardians a year later.
Kenneth and Peri are white, Dixon is black. They never cared, but others did.
“We didn’t think anything about it at all,” Peri Jones said. “I thought everybody was accepting and everything, but we had people on my husband’s side of the family who were uncomfortable with it.”
Dixon blossomed in his new environment, both academically and athletically. At Kenneth’s urging, he had given up baseball for football, which was better suited for his size. By his senior year at Pepperell High near Rome, Ga., he was 6 feet 5 and 265 pounds.
Regarded as one of the best defensive ends in the country, Dixon had a bevy of scholarship offers — Georgia, Alabama, Auburn, pretty much everyone in the SEC. But a 3.96 student and member of the National Honor Society, he fell for Vanderbilt.
Dixon announced his decision on Feb. 5, 2003. Five days later, when he walked into a classroom trailer after school, everything changed.
Only two people know the truth about what happened that day, and they have two different accounts. Dixon, 18 at the time, said he had consensual sex with a 15-year-old girl who was scared her racist father would find out. She claimed Dixon raped her, causing injuries that included bruising and a cut lip.
She reported it two days later to school authorities, who immediately contacted the police. On Feb. 12, Dixon was arrested and taken to prison. He was suspended from school, and Vanderbilt revoked his scholarship offer.
On March 14, a grand jury indicted Dixon for rape, aggravated assault, false imprisonment, sexual battery, statutory rape, and aggravated child molestation.
Given his status as a highly recruited football player, the case drew national attention. Given that he was black and she was white, much of that attention was racially charged.
“We were afraid for his life,” Peri Jones said. “And ours. I mean, we got spat on, we got cussed out, we got terrible phone calls.”
One day, Kenneth was in a local restaurant when he overheard two elderly gentlemen saying that “nigra who raped that girl” should be sent away for life. Kenneth walked over, told them he was that young man’s father, and as a parting shot added “I can’t wait until your generation dies out.”
On May 15, a jury of nine whites and three blacks found Dixon not guilty of everything but misdemeanor statutory rape and — the most serious charge of all — aggravated child molestation.
That statute had never been applied in a case involving consensual sex among teenagers with an age difference of less than three years. But as written, the law never mentioned consent. It focused on whether a minor had been injured, and the jury believed she had been.
The minimum sentence for aggravated child molestation was 10 years. The maximum was 15. Jurors told the media they were unaware of that when they convicted.
“When they found out how severe it was, they all got sick,” Peri Jones said. “They called our lawyer. They called me. They were crying, apologizing. They said, ‘We had no way of knowing.’”
Dixon spent most of his time in a 6-by-9 cell at the Al Burruss Correctional Training Center, a medium security prison, in Forsyth, Ga. That’s a 2½-hour drive from Rome.
“My faith was tested every single day,” Dixon said. “You wake up between white walls. You know you’re facing 10 years. Being away from my family. Having to call them every night and finding out the phone bill for each month was over $500.
“But I stayed strong in my faith. I studied the Bible. I just kept telling myself, ‘Somehow, someway, you’re going to get out of this.’”
Thanks largely to David Balser, a commercial litigator in Atlanta, he eventually did. Though specializing in mergers and acquisitions, he found it illogical that Dixon was acquitted of forcible sex crimes but sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Balser volunteered pro bono to help with the appeal. Meanwhile, Dixon’s case drew attention from Bryant Gumbel of HBO’s “Real Sports” and Oprah Winfrey. The NAACP and Children’s Defense Fund were two of several groups that came to his defense.
“What surprised me was the support I was getting from all over the world,” Dixon said. “Not just my hometown. Guys in the Navy who were at sea and heard about me on the radio.”
Fifty weeks after Dixon was convicted of aggravated child molestation, the Supreme Court of Georgia overturned it by a 4-3 decision. The conviction of statutory rape stood, but because he had already served 15 months (three more than the minimum sentence), he was released.
Getting on with his life
At 19, Dixon only wanted to get on with his life. Vanderbilt was no longer an option, but Middle Tennessee State was. Until it wasn’t.
“Everything was good,” Dixon said. “I had a dorm and everything. But the AD at the time (James Donnelly), he said, ‘Yeah, we want you here, but you can’t be a part of the football team until January.’
“I was like, ‘No, I want to play football. I’ve been out long enough.’”
Enter Hampton University, which Dixon at first dismissed. But the more he thought about it, the more it made sense.
“They were giving me a free ride, so why not?” he said. “Best decision I ever made.”
On Sept. 4, 2004, at Armstrong Stadium, Marcus Dixon made his long awaited college debut. He had two tackles in the Pirates’ 38-19 win over Jackson State, but his numbers were a mere footnote.
“The day we saw him on the field with his Hampton University uniform on and no chains, I just lost it,” Peri Jones said. “The only thing he ever wanted, and it’s coming true. And he wasn’t even walking. He was almost dancing.”
In four seasons with the Pirates, Dixon had 144 tackles and 15 sacks. As a senior, he made first-team All-MEAC.
Dixon wasn’t one of the 252 names called in the 2008 NFL Draft, so he went the free-agent route. He ended up playing in 22 regular-season games, all with the New York Jets from 2010-12.
One of his highlights was sacking Chicago Bears’ quarterback Jay Cutler — who would have been his teammate at Vanderbilt — at Soldier Field.
After playing the 2014 season with the BC Lions of the Canadian Football League, Dixon was contacted by the Dallas Cowboys regarding the Bill Walsh Minority Coaching Fellowship. He was with the team from May through the first week of September 2015.
The following year, Dixon was an assistant coach at Darlington High School in Rome. In 2017, then-HU coach Connell Maynor hired him as his defensive tackles coach. Maynor left following that season, but Robert Prunty kept him on.
“To me,” Prunty said, “Marcus Dixon’s story is one of the most inspirational I’ve heard.”
“It’s my testimony”
Tesa Dixon grew up in Rome but, because she went to Model High, knew the man who would become her husband only in passing. She remembers his arrest, the trial, and the fallout. She always believed in his innocence.
In 2009, they went on a blind date. They dated on and off before getting married in 2017. They have two daughters — Rhylee, 12, and Maddie, 4.
All along, she’s been proud of how her husband put his life back together without a trace of animosity.
“Myself,” she said, “I couldn’t have done it.”
To illustrate her point, Tesa describes an unlikely encounter between Dixon and John McClellan, the assistant district attorney in his case. It was around 2015, and Dixon was helping Tesa coach a youth basketball team. McClellan’s granddaughter was one of the players.
“Everybody was holding their breath like ‘Oh my gosh, how is this going to go?’” Tesa said. “To see them speak to each other and shake hands, it was amazing.
“He’s so forgiving, and I’m sure that took a lot of time and self-reflection. The way he’s handled it has been awesome.”
In the years that followed, Dixon was initially reluctant to discuss those 15 months. He didn’t want them to define him. But after some time, he came to realize he needed to speak.
“It’s my testimony, and I’ve got to share it because it’s going to help somebody,” he said. “It might not help somebody with that type of situation, but it can be anything you’re going through.
“There are going to be hard times, but you have to believe you’ll win that battle. Overcoming obstacles is the biggest thing. That’s what I take out of what my story was, and that’s what I try to pass on.”
[www.pilotonline.com]
With no bitterness, Marcus Dixon moves on living the good life
By DAVE JOHNSON
THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT |
SEP 22, 2019 AT 9:03 AM
Marcus Dixon’s 442nd night behind bars was, for the most part, no different than the previous 441. Yet for whatever reason, he couldn’t shake an uneasy feeling that something was up.
Hoping to burn off some nervous energy, he volunteered to take another inmate’s detail and buffed the floors. He might have dozed off for a couple of minutes here and there, but he never fell into a deep sleep.
Dixon’s 443rd day began as routine dictated until he was told the warden had requested his presence. According to SOP, the prisoner is taken there in handcuffs and stands the entire time. But he wasn’t cuffed, and he was asked to take a seat.
“Have you talked to your parents yet?” the warden asked.
“No, sir,” Dixon answered.
“I think you need to call them,” the warden said.
Dixon feared the worst, that someone in his family was sick or had died. Instead, after reaching his parents on the phone, he was told that after 15 long months, he was finally coming home.
On May 3, 2004, the Supreme Court of Georgia overturned a felony conviction that sent Dixon to prison for what could have been 15 years. The same judge who had pronounced that sentence ordered him released — immediately.
Suddenly, that sleepless night made sense to him.
“To this day,” he said, “I know it was the Lord was telling me ‘You’re never going to sleep in prison again.’”
Now 35, Dixon is married with two daughters. He’s a college graduate and former NFL player. And he’s a busy man as Hampton University’s defensive ends coach, director of player development, and recruiting coordinator.
He’s been told it was only natural to feel bitter. Toward the girl he contends lied by accusing him of rape. Toward the prosecutor he believes misapplied a law that was meant for sexual predators.
But Dixon had already lost enough. He just wanted to move on.
A future interrupted
Glenda Dixon, Marcus’ mother, was 15 years old when he was born. His father was never in the picture. In his early years, Marcus was raised by his maternal grandparents, Glenda Reynolds and Elijah Booket.
Then, when he was about 10, Kenneth and Peri Jones entered his life.
Kenneth was coaching a Little League All-Star team, and Dixon was one of his players. The Joneses paid his tournament fees, and he stayed in their home. He shared a bedroom with their biological son, Casey, who was the same age.
Soon, Dixon asked the Joneses to adopt him. They agreed without hesitation and became his legal guardians a year later.
Kenneth and Peri are white, Dixon is black. They never cared, but others did.
“We didn’t think anything about it at all,” Peri Jones said. “I thought everybody was accepting and everything, but we had people on my husband’s side of the family who were uncomfortable with it.”
Dixon blossomed in his new environment, both academically and athletically. At Kenneth’s urging, he had given up baseball for football, which was better suited for his size. By his senior year at Pepperell High near Rome, Ga., he was 6 feet 5 and 265 pounds.
Regarded as one of the best defensive ends in the country, Dixon had a bevy of scholarship offers — Georgia, Alabama, Auburn, pretty much everyone in the SEC. But a 3.96 student and member of the National Honor Society, he fell for Vanderbilt.
Dixon announced his decision on Feb. 5, 2003. Five days later, when he walked into a classroom trailer after school, everything changed.
Only two people know the truth about what happened that day, and they have two different accounts. Dixon, 18 at the time, said he had consensual sex with a 15-year-old girl who was scared her racist father would find out. She claimed Dixon raped her, causing injuries that included bruising and a cut lip.
She reported it two days later to school authorities, who immediately contacted the police. On Feb. 12, Dixon was arrested and taken to prison. He was suspended from school, and Vanderbilt revoked his scholarship offer.
On March 14, a grand jury indicted Dixon for rape, aggravated assault, false imprisonment, sexual battery, statutory rape, and aggravated child molestation.
Given his status as a highly recruited football player, the case drew national attention. Given that he was black and she was white, much of that attention was racially charged.
“We were afraid for his life,” Peri Jones said. “And ours. I mean, we got spat on, we got cussed out, we got terrible phone calls.”
One day, Kenneth was in a local restaurant when he overheard two elderly gentlemen saying that “nigra who raped that girl” should be sent away for life. Kenneth walked over, told them he was that young man’s father, and as a parting shot added “I can’t wait until your generation dies out.”
On May 15, a jury of nine whites and three blacks found Dixon not guilty of everything but misdemeanor statutory rape and — the most serious charge of all — aggravated child molestation.
That statute had never been applied in a case involving consensual sex among teenagers with an age difference of less than three years. But as written, the law never mentioned consent. It focused on whether a minor had been injured, and the jury believed she had been.
The minimum sentence for aggravated child molestation was 10 years. The maximum was 15. Jurors told the media they were unaware of that when they convicted.
“When they found out how severe it was, they all got sick,” Peri Jones said. “They called our lawyer. They called me. They were crying, apologizing. They said, ‘We had no way of knowing.’”
Dixon spent most of his time in a 6-by-9 cell at the Al Burruss Correctional Training Center, a medium security prison, in Forsyth, Ga. That’s a 2½-hour drive from Rome.
“My faith was tested every single day,” Dixon said. “You wake up between white walls. You know you’re facing 10 years. Being away from my family. Having to call them every night and finding out the phone bill for each month was over $500.
“But I stayed strong in my faith. I studied the Bible. I just kept telling myself, ‘Somehow, someway, you’re going to get out of this.’”
Thanks largely to David Balser, a commercial litigator in Atlanta, he eventually did. Though specializing in mergers and acquisitions, he found it illogical that Dixon was acquitted of forcible sex crimes but sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Balser volunteered pro bono to help with the appeal. Meanwhile, Dixon’s case drew attention from Bryant Gumbel of HBO’s “Real Sports” and Oprah Winfrey. The NAACP and Children’s Defense Fund were two of several groups that came to his defense.
“What surprised me was the support I was getting from all over the world,” Dixon said. “Not just my hometown. Guys in the Navy who were at sea and heard about me on the radio.”
Fifty weeks after Dixon was convicted of aggravated child molestation, the Supreme Court of Georgia overturned it by a 4-3 decision. The conviction of statutory rape stood, but because he had already served 15 months (three more than the minimum sentence), he was released.
Getting on with his life
At 19, Dixon only wanted to get on with his life. Vanderbilt was no longer an option, but Middle Tennessee State was. Until it wasn’t.
“Everything was good,” Dixon said. “I had a dorm and everything. But the AD at the time (James Donnelly), he said, ‘Yeah, we want you here, but you can’t be a part of the football team until January.’
“I was like, ‘No, I want to play football. I’ve been out long enough.’”
Enter Hampton University, which Dixon at first dismissed. But the more he thought about it, the more it made sense.
“They were giving me a free ride, so why not?” he said. “Best decision I ever made.”
On Sept. 4, 2004, at Armstrong Stadium, Marcus Dixon made his long awaited college debut. He had two tackles in the Pirates’ 38-19 win over Jackson State, but his numbers were a mere footnote.
“The day we saw him on the field with his Hampton University uniform on and no chains, I just lost it,” Peri Jones said. “The only thing he ever wanted, and it’s coming true. And he wasn’t even walking. He was almost dancing.”
In four seasons with the Pirates, Dixon had 144 tackles and 15 sacks. As a senior, he made first-team All-MEAC.
Dixon wasn’t one of the 252 names called in the 2008 NFL Draft, so he went the free-agent route. He ended up playing in 22 regular-season games, all with the New York Jets from 2010-12.
One of his highlights was sacking Chicago Bears’ quarterback Jay Cutler — who would have been his teammate at Vanderbilt — at Soldier Field.
After playing the 2014 season with the BC Lions of the Canadian Football League, Dixon was contacted by the Dallas Cowboys regarding the Bill Walsh Minority Coaching Fellowship. He was with the team from May through the first week of September 2015.
The following year, Dixon was an assistant coach at Darlington High School in Rome. In 2017, then-HU coach Connell Maynor hired him as his defensive tackles coach. Maynor left following that season, but Robert Prunty kept him on.
“To me,” Prunty said, “Marcus Dixon’s story is one of the most inspirational I’ve heard.”
“It’s my testimony”
Tesa Dixon grew up in Rome but, because she went to Model High, knew the man who would become her husband only in passing. She remembers his arrest, the trial, and the fallout. She always believed in his innocence.
In 2009, they went on a blind date. They dated on and off before getting married in 2017. They have two daughters — Rhylee, 12, and Maddie, 4.
All along, she’s been proud of how her husband put his life back together without a trace of animosity.
“Myself,” she said, “I couldn’t have done it.”
To illustrate her point, Tesa describes an unlikely encounter between Dixon and John McClellan, the assistant district attorney in his case. It was around 2015, and Dixon was helping Tesa coach a youth basketball team. McClellan’s granddaughter was one of the players.
“Everybody was holding their breath like ‘Oh my gosh, how is this going to go?’” Tesa said. “To see them speak to each other and shake hands, it was amazing.
“He’s so forgiving, and I’m sure that took a lot of time and self-reflection. The way he’s handled it has been awesome.”
In the years that followed, Dixon was initially reluctant to discuss those 15 months. He didn’t want them to define him. But after some time, he came to realize he needed to speak.
“It’s my testimony, and I’ve got to share it because it’s going to help somebody,” he said. “It might not help somebody with that type of situation, but it can be anything you’re going through.
“There are going to be hard times, but you have to believe you’ll win that battle. Overcoming obstacles is the biggest thing. That’s what I take out of what my story was, and that’s what I try to pass on.”
[www.pilotonline.com]
