Former Ole Miss baseball player has made a tremendous football coach
Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.
Hebrews 13:2, KJV, The Holy Bible
Mark Dixon comes from mighty fine stock. His uncle, Bill Dixon, numbers among the better football coaches the Appalachia mountains have ever known. Bill Dixon began his football coaching career at M.C. Napier High School where he won over 100 games. He built a strong and competitive program for the Navajos. In 1970, Bill Dixon became the head baseball coach at M.C. Napier high school where he won almost 600 games, several 54th district titles, and regional crowns in 1977, 1986 and 1987. Bill Dixon’s 1987 team would play in the baseball state “Final Four.” For this, Bill Dixon was inducted into the KHSAA Baseball Coaches Hall of Fame. His nephew, Mark Dixon, appears headed to the Hall of Fame himself when he hangs up the whistle. Dixon is a couple wins away from 200, won a 1A state football championship at Hazard in 2011, and took his Hazard team to the title game in 2008, ’10, ’11, and ’16. This guy is integrity personified. This guy is honesty personified. He is the veritable personification of doing things the right way.
HB Lyon, Scouting Director, “KPGFootball”
Hazard, KY: Mark Dixon is among my favorite coaches I have covered through the years. I know him to be a man of character, a man of integrity, an honest man.
George Washington, the father of our country was a man of character, much like Coach Dixon. Allow me to make a point which you may not have before considered.
Character is thought to be what one displays when one thinks no body else is looking. A generation after George Washington’s death, the statesman, Daniel Webster, concluded that “America has furnished to the world the character of Washington, and if our American institutions had done nothing else, that alone would have entitled them to the respect of mankind.” Emphasis supplied.
What was so noteworthy about our first President under the US Constitution you ask? Well, how about his resigning the presidency and returning home to civilian life?
When Washington resigned the presidency, and handed over a standing army which could have kept him in power, none other than King George III, from Great Britain, expressed both surprise and enormous respect. Washington’s choice to relinquish power was, both in and of its self, revolutionary in a world where monarchs held onto power indefinitely.
King George called Washington, for that act, “the greatest man in the world.” That is a pretty significant statement.
I can’t say Mark Dixon is the greatest man in the world. I can’t, with any degree of certainty, say he isn’t. I have no reservation in calling him a great man.
I can’t say Mark Dixon is the greatest man in the world. I can’t, with any degree of certainty, say he isn’t.
Friday Night Fletch
Mark Dixon coached the Hazard Bulldogs from 2003-2019. Over that period of time, 17 seasons, he amassed a record of 172-54 with four trips to the KHSAA title game and a title in 2011.
Dixon left Hazard to take over the program at Perry County Central. Perry has had some stud coaches. None of them have done very well at Perry. They either won a boat load of games before getting to Perry (Tom Larkey) or after leaving (Justin Haddix).
Dixon has led the Perry County Central football fortunes for the past five seasons (2020-2024). Thus far, he has led the program to a pair of seven win campaigns and a respectable, if not Dixon-esque, record of 26-27. Dixon enters the ’25 campaign just two wins short of 200-wins, a significant coaching milestone in the KHSAA reserved for only its greatest head football coaches.
We have Coach Dixon at 198-81 all time over his coaching career. We have him winning a title and playing for three (3) more. That comes out to 71% winning rate over 279-games. We believe this coming season, 2025, will be Dixon’s 23rd year as a head football coach. Two-hundred wins in 23-years is remarkable.
Winning 198-games in 22-seasons is averaging nine (9) wins a year. That is remarkable.
Even more remarkable is Dixon’s conducting himself with enormous integrity all the while. Equally remarkable is Dixon’s reputation for unassailable honesty.
Winning 198-games in 22-seasons is averaging nine (9) wins a year
KHSAA statistical website
There is a famous writer who happens to also be a medical doctor. His name is Spencer Johnson and he numbers among the world’s most respected thinkers and writers.
Johnson took his medical degree from the Royal College of Surgeons. The Royal College of Surgeons is in London, England.
The college was formed in the 14th century. Johnson was a well renown and respected author and better known for being a writer than a physician. Johnson was certainly not a poor doctor. He did serve two medical clerkships; one at The Mayo Clinic and the other at Harvard Medical School. We would call that pretty high cotton.
As a writer, Johnson sold forty-six (46) million copies of his books worldwide. His works have been translated into more than forty-seven (47) different languages. That is also pretty high cotton.
Johnson wrote once that “…[i]ntegrity is telling myself the truth. And honesty is telling the truth to other people.” That is simply stated but still both accurate and fairly astute.
I have been nominated for induction into the KHSAA Hall of Fame as a Contributor. I am including this fact for demonstrative purposes and not to “toot my own horn.”
I asked Mark Dixon for his endorsement. I asked Coach Dixon to recommend me to the committee. He agreed to endorse me and wrote a beautiful recommendation, a very well written tribute. There was a reason I asked him specifically.
I know Mark Dixon. We are fairly well acquainted but the two of us have never broken bread together.
I knew if Dixon believed me qualified for induction, he would support me. I also knew if he didn’t feel that way, he wouldn’t.
Mark Dixon would never, and I mean NEVER, compromise his ethics nor his honestly held convictions merely to ingratiate himself to me or anyone (for that matter). I know that about him. I admire him for it.
Dixon is a measuring stick, a barometer if you will. If you don’t want to know what he really thinks; don’t ask him. If you ask; well, you asked.
If you don’t want to know what [Dixon] really thinks; don’t ask him
Friday Night Fletch
Dixon has always been this way. He is known for it. I am grateful Coach Dixon held my work and me in such high esteem.
Dixon played football at M.C. Napier High along the banks of the North Fork river in Hazard, Kentucky. M.C. Napier was among the Perry County high schools consolidated to form Perry County Central, where Dixon presently coaches.
Jerry Brewer in 1983 during his
time as coach at M. C. Napier.
Dixon’s acorn didn’t fall very far from its tree. Mark Dixon’s uncle was the great Bill Dixon, the former football and baseball coach at M.C. Napier.
Bill Dixon is famous in his own right. As HB Lyon so ably laid out above, “Bill Dixon began his football coaching career at M.C. Napier high school where he won over 100 games. [Bill Dixon] built a strong and competitive program for the Navajos.
Lyon went on to relate, “In 1970, Bill Dixon became the head baseball coach at M.C. Napier high school where he won almost 600 games, several 54th district titles, and regional crowns in 1977, 1986 and 1987. Bill Dixon’s 1987 team would play in the baseball state ‘Final Four.’ For this, Bill Dixon was inducted into the KHSAA Baseball Coaches Hall of Fame.”
Mark Dixon’s enshrinement, once he gains eligibility, won’t lag too far behind that of Uncle Bill. Again, as Johnson said, integrity is telling yourself the truth, honesty is telling the truth to others.
Mark Dixon knows what greatness is. Dixon played football for a great coach. Dixon played baseball for a Hall of Fame manager. Dixon played baseball collegiately at Ole Miss, in the SEC, and was a varsity, two time, letter winner.
Mark Dixon knows the truth. Dixon knows where I stand and what recognition I either deserve or don’t deserve.
Dixon knows where he stands. Dixon has the integrity to tell it to himself. Dixon has the honesty to tell it to you.
The Holy Bible warns against forgetting to entertain strangers. Hebrews 13:2 of the King James Version says, “Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.”
We operate a business at KPGFootball where we talk to coaches on the daily. It is how we monitor who the next up and coming star players figure to be. It is how we monitor which teams are likely to contend from year to year. It is how we track which coaches are the legends or even the future legends.
When we talk with coaches we have to remember to be careful. Some of these guys are legends unawares. Some of these guys are Mark Dixon.
I have to wonder out loud how many people around Hazard, Kentucky and/or Perry County really know how great and legendary Mark Dixon truly is? I have to wonder how many of the “locals” realize that, in watching him coach football around the county and the area, they are getting to see something truly remarkable, truly singular.
It is the truth. It is the truth he tells himself because of his immense integrity. It is a truth he doesn’t have to tell me because I already know.
It is the truth he avoids telling you, though he is honest enough to know it. It is the honest truth Dixon avoids because he would rather not appear vain glorious, so he opts for quiet instead.
Has anyone ever noticed how quiet of a man Mark Dixon is? That silence may be born from his wishing to avoid discussing the truth of his legend, the truth of his greatness, the truth that privately he knows all too well. We all, in the know, know it too.
So he is silent. His record isn’t. His achievements aren’t; neither is his greatness. It is all right there; right in front of you!
Just open your eyes. See it?
This is Friday Night Fletch, reporting for KPGFootball, reminding you to PLAY THROUGH THE WHISTLE!
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