Antonio Dixon offers a classic lesson in perseverance

When young Antonio Dixon spoke, he did so with his fists.

Because when he did open his mouth, the words just wouldn't come out. Or a long, laborious struggle to get through a sentence would ensue, and that only worsened the plight for Dixon as his peers — as youngsters are wont to do — taunted him unmercifully for his stuttering.

Since he couldn't respond with a quick comeback or even a "Shut up!" he took matters into his own hands.

"I got into so many fights," Dixon said recently. "I wouldn't cry. But I'd fight and then I would cry. I got so many suspensions. I got into so many fights because people were picking on me. Because kids will keep picking and keep picking and keep picking, and I ain't the type to take it for too long."

Eventually — probably in high school, Dixon said, when football saved his life — the taunting ended. But the speech impediment remains.

Dixon has overcome a lot in his 25 years — poverty, homelessness, illiteracy and the drug problems of his parents — to get where he is as a starting defensive tackle for the Eagles. But the stutter he said he's had "ever since I was born" is a constant reminder of his past.

Though the taunting has stopped, the teasing has not.

"Whenever I meet new people, they make fun of me a few times," Dixon said. "But once they get to know me, they don't do it as much because they know I'm a cool person. It happened during college ... and when I came to the Redskins, and here (with the Eagles) it was also the same way.

"But I got used to it and I don't get mad because I would probably laugh, too, a couple of times."

Dixon's stutter is at its worst when he is nervous, and he's especially anxious when he is being interviewed. So the answers take some time to get out and are interrupted with chest-pounding, hand-clapping, and foot-stomping as he spits out the words.

But through it all, Dixon flashes a wide smile without showing a hint of self-consciousness.

"I know he knows he does it, but he's in a good place with it," Eagles safety Quintin Mikell said. "We do kind of joke around with him about it, but I've never seen anybody overly joke with him about it.

"I know that he'd rather not, but it's not like he gets mad, which is impressive. Not a lot of people can do that. Some people are real sensitive."

Dixon's life would be a success story even if he hadn't reached the NFL. He was born into poverty in Miami, his father sent to prison for 17 years for selling crack, his mother addicted to cocaine and sent to rehab.

Dixon and his siblings were sent to an orphanage, and then spent time in homeless shelters after his mother, Corenthia "Peaches" Dixon, kicked her addiction.

"Antonio's had to overcome some things just in his life," Eagles coach Andy Reid said. "He has a speech impediment, and so on, and he's worked through that and he's one of the team favorites, just as far as being a person."

Catching the coach's eye

Personality and a good story can keep you around only for so long.

Reid has acknowledged taking a liking to Dixon. He always has his pet projects. When the Eagles acquired the undrafted rookie off waivers from Washington last August, the 6-foot-3 Dixon weighed 325 pounds. But it was a chubby 325.

"The first time I came here, the first thing (Reid) told me was to keep my weight under control and not try to prove anything," said Dixon, who once weighed 370 pounds in college at Miami. "He was real hard on me during practices, but I knew that was a good thing, because a coach doesn't have to say nothing to you. But when he tells you something to do, it might be because he sees something in you."

Dixon had a few moments as a reserve a year ago, but it wasn't as if he had earned a roster spot for 2010. The Eagles like their defensive tackles on the leaner, quicker side, and Dixon went to work on his transformation.

"He really worked in the off-season about keeping his weight down and kind of reforming his body," Reid said, "and it's paying off for him."
Dixon started the season in the reserve defensive tackle rotation. But when Brodrick Bunkley injured his elbow at San Francisco, Dixon got more playing time. In the three-plus games since he's been the team's anchor against the run, he has recorded 15 tackles and two sacks.

Even though Bunkley returned Sunday against the Colts, Dixon remained the starter.

The defensive starters have adopted him as one of their own.

"He's a lovable guy — you know what I mean?" linebacker Moise Fokou said. "He's like a big teddy bear."

A reminder

Dixon isn't the only Eagle with a speech impediment. Fokou said he stammers occasionally when he gets excited. Winston Justice said a stutter kept him from barely speaking as a youngster. He used to watch his father, Gary Justice, give rousing speeches as the pastor of a church.

"I just used to envy all the people that got in front of crowds," the Eagles tackle said. "For instance, my dad used to give a lot of speeches. I wasn't really that close with him, but I always used to envy that about him."

Justice, who grew up in Southern California, said he would avoid being called on in school, stayed clear of large gatherings, and isolated himself.

"That's how I got into writing, because it's really a big problem," said Justice, who writes a weekly column for the Philadelphia Daily News. "People don't think it's a really big problem. But, really, when you can't communicate with other human beings normally, it kind of hurts."

Justice said that taking mandatory speech classes in high school made him realize that his problem had a cure. He continued to take private lessons when he went to Southern California for college, and still does to this day.

"I knew it was something I wanted to get better at, because I wanted to be able to speak in front of large crowds," said Justice, who recently became the Eagles' union representative. "I wanted to be able to go to schools and talk to kids, and I couldn't do that with a stutter."

When Dixon joined the Eagles, Justice noticed his speech problem immediately and said he offered words of encouragement. Dixon, though, stopped taking speech classes long ago and said he has no intention of resuming them.

"From third grade to my senior year, I had speech classes every day," said Dixon, whose dyslexia had something to do with his not learning to read until the sixth grade. "I hated it. I had to go, like, three, four hours a day. They used to come in and take me from my classroom so I could go to speech therapy. I hated speech therapy. But it helped me a lot because I couldn't say, like, two words."

Professional athletes are expected to be the best at their crafts, but they're also expected to naturally handle many off-the-field tasks — such as talking to the media.

"I used to be real quiet and reserved, but I was a communications major in college, and so I did a lot of speeches," Mikell said. "But even with all that, when I came to the NFL it was still weird for me because you have to talk in front of cameras."

Recently, Dixon was asked to appear on a local television station. He took his girlfriend, Vanessa Williams, along for the taping, and "she was like, 'I didn't know you stuttered like that.' "

It's one of the few reminders of his difficult childhood. His mother has been clean for years and now works at one of the Miami shelters where her family once lived. His father, Frazier Hawkins, was released from prison last year, and the two communicate daily.

Dixon, who is in the second year of a three-year contract he originally signed with the Washington Redskins, is homeless no more. He lives near Penn's Landing and plans to buy a house in South Jersey with Williams.

Did his stutter ever hinder his luck with girls?

"Yeah, a little, but it didn't affect me that much," Dixon said with a sly grin.



(newstimes.com)