Blaine Dixey retires after 30 years of service to Sho-Ban Jr./Sr. High School
Blaine Dixey stands with the “Bad Dude Awards” at Timbee Hall.
By LIZZIE BOYD
Sho-Ban News
FORT HALL — At the age of 81 years-old, Blaine Dixey retired from the Shoshone-Bannock Jr./Sr. High School at the end of February after he dedicated 30 plus years to the school as a custodian.
The school named the gymnasium after Blaine because of his hard work and dedication in keeping it in pristine condition for many years.
Blaine explained his children and grandchildren came up with the idea to honor his retirement and sponsor the “Bad Dude” award during the Fort Hall Classic All Indian Basketball Tournament.
Dixey said, “I was just joking around when the kids asked what we should name the award, I showed them a tattoo I have, as he pointed to the letters “B and D” on his arm, and he said call it the Bad Dude award.” “Years ago there was a group of about 60 kids that came to the school, some were from California, they helped out around the school helping repair things, and one day they asked me what the tattoo stood for, joking around I told them it stood for ‘Bad Dude’ until someone noticed my name on my shirt and said Blaine Dixey.”
Sterling Littlegeorge was presented the award for playing in the most divisions in the Classic.
Blaine was one of those players who played in multiple divisions. Blaine selected Harry Yazzie as his player pick — Yazzie received a Pendleton blanket. Blaine was gifted a star quilt from his family with Sho-Ban High School colors.
When asked what he will do now that he is retired Dixey said, “I can’t do much now due to my leg, so I’ll take it easy for a while, but it’s very boring. Probably work again when my leg is better.”
Walking into Timbee Hall before the opening ceremony of the Classic tournament Blaine was seen sitting watching the men’s 70 plus players warm up for their game.
Dixey said, “I had to retire from the school as I got hurt twice in two weeks. I messed my leg up pretty good, I handled it for a while, but I couldn’t do it, my leg was holding me back from doing my work. If I didn’t hurt my leg, I would probably be playing today in the 70 plus game.”
While he was awaiting the 70 plus game to start, his old teammates came up and were shaking his hand and saying hello including Mike Jordan.
From left, Sterling Littlegeorge was the recipient of the Blaine Dixey “Bad Dude Award," and daughter.
Dixey recalls being about ten years old when he first started playing basketball, “I liked basketball so much that when I wasn’t at school, I got an old wooden circle hoop off a potato basket that had wire on the inside and rope on the outside. I just took the wire off it and nailed it on the old barn. Most of the time the ball would get stuck in the hoop when I shot the ball into it cause the hoop wasn’t very big, that’s how I got good at shooting. We didn’t have a Timbee Hall back then, I would go to the gym at the junior high — sometimes the high school with Bugs and Willis Dixey, we would get some money together and pay for the lights. I can’t remember how much it cost maybe $50 or so.”
He didn’t play basketball for a school as he smiled and said, “I had bad grades, I was asked to play JV but I didn’t play school ball. I did learn a lot of the fundamentals during my junior high PE class.” Dixey continued, “When I was young about 13 or 14, I was running around and got caught drinking, I got sent to Inglewood (Colo.) for a year. It was my first time being away from home, I met a few Indians from Montana, there was about six Indians, two colored guys and one white guy we played on a basketball team there in Colorado. I learned a lot from them about basketball. They were kind of my idols, they must have played high school ball, but I learned a lot from them about the game.”
Most of the time Dixey worked when he was young, “I didn’t travel much but mostly traveled to Owyhee, Nev. or sometimes Fort Duchesne for basketball tournaments.” Then a Recreation director back then took us to Yakima, Wash., I got to see all the different teams there.
He recalled a couple tournaments that were his favorites, “Nationals in Billings (Mont.) was always fun, and Lapwai, Idaho.” Dixey recalls when Timbee Hall opened in 1964, he played on a five-man team that year, just at the end of the basketball season.
Harry Yazzie (left) and Blaine Dixey.
He talked about when he coached a few teams, “I started off teaching my sister-in-law, Iola Hernandez, then Peggy Dixey asked my daughter Lynette to play on a team in town, they won the city league pretty easy. They were pretty good, I didn’t know a lot about how to really coach but, I watched different Indian teams over the years, and they used their quickness and they played man to man. So that’s what I had the girls play, and most of the times the other teams couldn’t get the ball passed half court on our team because the girls were pretty good at man to man.”
“I tried to coach a boys’ team once, they were a little harder they didn’t listen.” “One day the boys wouldn’t get up, I told them if you’re not ready when I get back, I’ll leave you, they didn’t believe me. I went to pick up their friends. When I got back home and they weren’t ready I left them. They were running trying to catch me driving away.” He smiled and said, “they were never late again.”
The future of basketball is up to parents Dixey said, “Children need to be encouraged by their parents to play ball, so basketball can continue on.”
He is a proud dad, grandpa and great grandpa and the basketball tradition lives on through his family. Blaine said, “I’m proud of my great grand kids playing school basketball and my son and daughter will be playing this weekend.”
The Family served cake on Saturday in the basement of Timbee Hall to anyone in attendance.
The Bad Dude awards were on display in the foyer of Timbee Hall, along with a few photos of Blaine in his younger years. There was also a 1973 tournament program that Blaine’s granddaughter Samantha Pretty Weasel set up in the basement of Timbee Hall to view. It was from an old tournament Blaine played in.
