WEST POINT, N.Y. -- A month after Maggie Dixon collapsed and
died from a heart problem, Dave Magarity was hired Tuesday to
succeed her as Army's women's basketball coach.
Magarity, who coached the Marist men's team in nearby
Poughkeepsie for 18 years, was hired last fall by Dixon to help
steady an Army program in flux. He was associate head coach during
Army's run to its first Patriot League championship and the
academy's first berth in the NCAA tournament.
"I have mixed emotions today," said Magarity, Army's eighth
head coach in 29 seasons of varsity play. "It's been a tough
couple of weeks for us. Everybody here lost a great friend, a woman
with tremendous character and a great role model, a young lady with
a tremendous future."
Dixon collapsed April 5 while visiting a friend on campus, was
placed on life support at Westchester Medical Center in Valhalla
and died the next evening. Coroner reports indicated the
28-year-old first-year coach had an enlarged heart, which probably
led to the arrhythmia that caused her death. She is buried at West
Point Cemetery.
Army athletic director Kevin Anderson said Magarity expressed
interest in succeeding Dixon, and that made a search unnecessary.
"We didn't talk to anybody else," Anderson said. "The one
thing we wanted to make sure was that Dave wanted the job. We
agreed to let everything simmer before we started talking. ... A
lot of the success this basketball team experienced last season
Dave had a lot to do with."