WASHINGTON _ On road trips with the Maryland men's basketball team during his three seasons as a special assistant, Juan Dixon admired how coach Mark Turgeon involved his own family, and particularly his father Bob.
Dixon, 38, lost both of his parents to AIDS when he was a teenager. Phil and Juanita Dixon weren't around to see the former Calvert Hall standout lead the Terps to their only national championship in 2002 _ the year he was a consensus All-American and the Most Outstanding Player of the Final Four.
They didn't share in the ups and downs of his NBA career _ a seven-year journey from Washington to Portland to Toronto to Detroit and back to Washington, with only one season as a starter.
"I said to Coach Turgeon, 'It's awesome that you get the support that you do from your dad, traveling with the team, being there for you, no matter if things are going well or not,' " Dixon said.
"I told him, 'I wish I could have had that with my own father.' "
Dixon smiled. His eyes moistened.
"Now I do," he said.
The Baltimore native learned in late August that Phil Dixon was not his biological father.
For Juan Dixon, it was another turn in a tumultuous year.
In June, the University of Maryland's all-time men's leading scorer learned the school would not be renewing his contract as a special assistant to Turgeon.
In October, he was hired to his first head coaching job, with the women's basketball team at the University of the District of Columbia.
In between, he began building a relationship with Bruce Flanigan.
A blood test the men took in September revealed that the retired Baltimore County correctional officer, a former boyfriend of Dixon's mother, was his biological father.
Flanigan long suspected the connection.
Until this year, Dixon didn't know Flanigan existed.
He grew up believing Phil Dixon was his father. When Phil and Juanita died in 1995, the extended Dixon family _ including eventual Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon _ joined in helping to raise him.
Now Juan Dixon talks to Flanigan every day.
"It feels so natural," he said. "He's someone I can talk to, just dealing with stuff here (at UDC).
"It's great."
