Magarity succeeds Maggie Dixon at Army

5/2/2006 4:14 PM

By JOHN KEKIS
AP Sports Writer

With the blessings of Maggie Dixon's family, Dave Magarity was hired as the women's coach at Army on Tuesday, succeeding a woman whose death at 28 this season shook all of college basketball.

Magarity coached the Marist men's team in nearby Poughkeepsie for 18 years and 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.

The 56-year-old Magarity spoke with Dixon's mother and sister before accepting the job. The move came a month after Dixon collapsed and died from a heart problem.

``They gave me their blessing,'' he said. ``They felt it was what Maggie would have wanted.''

Magarity is Army's eighth coach in 29 seasons of varsity play. His daughter will be part of his coaching staff.

``I have mixed emotions today,'' he said. ``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. We could never replace her, but we have to continue to move the program forward. That is what she would want.''

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 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. Magarity accepted the job Friday.

``He let us know early on. 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.''

Under Dixon, Army enjoyed one of the finest seasons, finishing 20-11 for its first 20-win season since 1990-91.

Army assistants Craig Madzinski and Kelly Flahive are no longer on staff, leaving Magarity, Jen Fleming and operations director Mary Kurnat as the lone returnees. Before she died, Dixon had interviewed Magarity's 25-year-old daughter, Maureen, for a job, and on Tuesday she joined the staff.

``Just the thought of working for my father is a dream come true. We have a special relationship,'' said Maureen Magarity, an assistant at Fairfield last season.

Army loses four seniors but has a solid nucleus returning in Patriot League player of the year Cara Enright and league rookie of the year Alex McGuire.

``We believe that what we did was not a fluke,'' Magarity said. ``We answered every challenge.''

In 23 years as a head coach, Magarity has a record of 313-334, with 253 of those wins at Marist. He left coaching after the 2003-04 season to run the athletic development at Marist, then directed men's basketball operations for the Mid-American and Metro Atlantic Athletic conferences before being hired at Army.

``I have every intention of making this my last stop,'' he said. ``These seven months have probably been the best of my career, professionally. It just put a real perspective on things.''

``I had gotten real sour on the game and this really brought me back to what it's all about - working hard and having fun,'' he added. ``There were some other opportunities. I looked at them, but you can't get any better than this.''