Former NBA and Maryland star basketball player Juan Dixon lost his parents Juanita and Phil Dixon to AIDS-related illness when he was 16 years old. Juan recently learned that his biologial father, who he had not met before August, is in fact alive. (Kevin Richardson/Baltimore Sun video)
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.