She's still No. 1 in his thoughts

FROM PITTSBURGH — He still talks to her.

He touches his reddened eyes, smiles softly, shakes his head, of course he still talks to her.

Late at night, driving home from the gym, traveling from recruit to recruit, the coach of the nation's top-ranked college basketball team still talks to his younger sister.

She was also a basketball coach, remember? She once took a team to the NCAA tournament in the same year he did, remember?

There's a lot they can still share. There's a lot he can still learn.

Almost three years after the sudden death of Army women's coach Maggie Dixon, in the quiet of his thoughts, Pittsburgh men's Coach Jamie Dixon still talks to her.

"I always thought she'd be the first one to win a national championship," he said. "Maybe now we can win one together."

So it is that this week's flashy bit of sports news -- Pitt's reaching the No. 1 basketball ranking for the first time in its 101-year history -- is really about something much simpler.

It is the story of a North Hollywood kid who, having spent his life searching the world for basketball fulfillment, is finally reaching it with strength from home.

Meet Jamie Dixon, family guy.

Home is where parents Jim and Marge -- whom he still phones every day -- gave him the work ethic to lead Pitt to the top after a career spent bouncing around the bottom, playing professionally in four minor leagues in four countries, serving as an assistant coach for five teams.

Not counting the time he taught basketball to 10-year-old girls in New Zealand.

"You know how you always think of your children as kids?" said father Jim, a screenwriter. "Not my son. He's a real man."

Home is where one sister, Julie Dixon Silva, legal advisor to Los Angeles County District Atty. Steve Cooley, would be there with support as he endured a ruptured pancreas in Holland, a freezing winter with no car in La Crosse, Wis., and decrepit apartments everywhere.

"We've always been there for each other," Julie said. "We're always there to put away the chairs and mop up under the basket."

Home is where his other sister, Maggie, the baby of the family, a dozen years younger than Jamie, grew into not only a close friend, but a valued colleague as coach of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

"They were really close, she idolized Jamie, they talked all the time, they relied on each other," said Ben Howland, the UCLA coach and longtime Dixon friend.