BY ANDY BAGGOT
UWBadgers.com Insider
MADISON, Wis. — If we are judged by the company we keep, then what are we to make of D'Cota Dixon?
A junior safety for the Wisconsin football team, Dixon learned recently that he's one of five recipients of the Wilma Rudolph Student-Athlete Achievement Award for 2017.
The honor, sponsored by the National Association of Academic Advisors for Athletics and named for the late U.S. Olympian who endured poverty, racism and polio to win three gold medals, is open to student-athletes at all levels of NCAA sponsorship.
According to the N4A, the award is intended to recognize student-athletes who have overcome great personal, academic and/or emotional odds to achieve academic success while participating in intercollegiate athletics
They may not be the best athletes or students, and therefore may not have been recognized by other organizations or awards. Nonetheless, they have persevered and made significant strides toward success.
Among the recipients are a wrestler who watched family members die during a Mideast bomb attack and later had his career disrupted by serious injuries; a basketball player who persevered through three strokes triggered by her Type 1 diabetes; a swimmer with cystic fibrosis who was told she wouldn't live beyond middle school; and a baseball player whose severe colitis landed him in the hospital for 56 days, but didn't end his career as a student or athlete.
There's a lot of pluck, fortitude, determination and heart in those stories, which will be acknowledged during the N4A convention awards luncheon on June 10 in Orlando, Florida.
Dixon will listen to them knowing his journey is no less extraordinary.
He will recall the abject poverty of his youth growing up in Florida, how he and his older brother once lived amid rats and insects with a Styrofoam cooler serving as a refrigerator.
Dixon will recount his brother being sent to prison, the death of his father by heart attack and the defection of his birth mother to drugs and mental illness.
He will look back on him and his stepmother being evicted from their home and once being labeled an at-risk, special-needs student in part due to his ADHD.
Dixon will reflect on the events of 12 months ago when he was hospitalized with a severe, life-threatening infection.
He will revisit those realities knowing he's triumphantly emerged as a front-line starter for the Badgers and recently made the Dean's List with a 3.5 grade-point average.
"The most hard-working young man that I have worked with in over 25 years," said LeAnn Bird, a learning specialist for the UW football team.
Leo Musso, a senior who started alongside Dixon in the Wisconsin secondary last season, refers to Dixon as his brother.
"He has a pretty deep story," Musso said. "A lot of people on earth could not have done what he has."
In a letter of recommendation for the Rudolph Award, UW coach Paul Chryst said Dixon is one of the impactful people in his life.
"I am certainly well aware of D'Cota's past, but what stood out to me is what a terrific person he is today," Chryst wrote. "D'Cota is a great teammate, a diligent worker, humble, genuine, compassionate, a person of true faith, passionate about life's opportunities, loyal, persistent, and a leader.
"The characteristics that describe D'Cota are the very same characteristics I would want someone to use to describe any one of my family members or myself."
In a subsequent interview, Chryst smiled as he spoke of Dixon's selfless approach to life.
"He will impact people as long as he lives," Chryst said.
Dixon's story will undoubtedly resonate with the other winners.
Ali Khalid Alshujery is a wrestler at Oregon State whose family fled war-torn Iraq for the U.S. His career with the Beavers was interrupted twice by surgery to repair torn ACLs in his knees.
Amber Brown is a women's basketball player at Norfolk State who suffered brain damage related to three strokes and continuous seizures from diabetes. She eventually walked out of hospital on her own 40 days later and returned to school two months later.
Kelly Buyaskas is a swimmer at East Stroudsburg State who was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis as an infant and told she wouldn't survive beyond her teens. She became a competitive swimmer only to have her career disrupted by surgery to remove her gall bladder and part of a kidney.
Nicholas Kern is a baseball player at California who was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis, an autoimmune disease in which the body attacks its own colon. He underwent multiple surgeries and was hospitalized for nearly two months before returning to school.
It's an impressive, admirable group worthy of honor.
Kris Eiring is a former standout with the UW women's track team who now serves as director of clinical and sport psychology for student-athletes at her alma mater. She knows what Dixon, a rehabilitation psychology major, has been through and is trying to help him follow in her professional footsteps.
"He made a choice to see what he gained from the challenges in his life rather than what he all lost," Eiring wrote in a letter of recommendation for Dixon. "He developed an inner resolve to see what positives can come from difficult circumstances."
Bird became emotional talking about Dixon, who's embraced his faith in God and become a mentor to friends and teammates alike.
"He's changed my life," she said.
