The chaos, albeit fun chaos, is almost over now for Dave Hixon.
This weekend, after 42 years of earning his spot in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame and four months of handling all the logistics that come with induction, he’ll officially join the rest of the game’s immortals in Springfield.
He’s be enshrined in a class with Dwayne Wade, Dirk Nowitzki, Tony Parker, Pau Gasol and Becky Hammon, Gregg Popovich, Jim Valvano, the 1976 U.S. Olympic women’s basketball team, Gene Keady, former Gary Blair and Gene Bess.
Hixon is the first men’s Division III coach to be inducted into the Hall of Fame based entirely on his performance coaching at that level. The planning and preparation skills that helped him win 826 games, reach seven Final Fours and two National Championships are useful for getting ready for the weekend’s ceremony.
- Related: Mobile sports betting is live in Massachusetts on DraftKings. Get started with $150 in bonus bets
Once an individual gets the phone call telling them they’re in, there’s suddenly plenty of things that need to be done. — renting an after-party room, arranging tickets for friends and travel for family and of course writing a speech.
Unlike the star NBA players, who have agents and personal assistants or the Division I coaches, who have staff for almost everything, Division III coaches handle quite a bit of the small details themselves, just like during basketball season.
Hixon, who hasn’t coached since 2020, seems to secretly like being busy.
“There’s a lot of stuff, like the enshrinement party. You get a room and you gotta get the menu and you got to do this. I’ve been running around like crazy, but that’s all right,” he said. “It’s all good. It’s all fun. And in a week and a half, it’ll be over.”
Hixon estimated that somewhere between 50 and 75 friends, family and former Amherst players and staff would be at the induction, many of whom bought tickets before Hixon even got his allotment knowing the high-voltage star players being included would increase the likelihood of a sellout. Throughout his five-and-a-half-minute speech, Hixon will try to scan the room with his eyes to see them without losing the teleprompter.
While many Hall of Famers struggle with writing their speech and public speaking phobias. Hixon’s concerns were on the other end of the spectrum. At the Amherst College banquet in his honor before the school named its basketball court for him, he spoke for over an hour sharing stories and anecdotes from his career. Fitting everything he wants to say into 330 seconds is the challenge.
“You only have six minutes and they want you safely inside six. So they’re really talking five and a half. Now I doubt very much they’re going to put a corral on Dwyane Wade and a couple of those guys. So they’ll probably take 20 minutes,” Hixon said. “But for guys like me, you do what you’re told. When you think about five-and-half minutes, there’s not a whole lot of time other than if you want to recognize some people and thank some people for helping you get there. That’s sort of it.”
Hixon joked about his tendency to run long.
“There’s no time really for stories and I love to tell stories,” he said. ”You recognize the people that have helped you and your family and next thing, you know, five-and-a-half minutes is over. I’m not complaining.”
Hixon is cognizant that he’s not only representing himself and Amherst College, but all of Divison III men’s basketball. He hopes his arrival opens the doors for many of his friends, rivals and colleagues. Several people around Division III have reached out to him to congratulate him, many of who he hopes will eventually follow him into immortality.
“I do think a lot of people see this as maybe a possibility to get a couple more people in,” he said.
There will be one other former Division III men’s coach being inducted this weekend, but Gregg Popovich’s five NBA titles with the Spurs likely held more influence with the voters than Popovich’s three Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference titles in eight seasons at Pomona-Pitzer.
“The first thing he says when they tell him he’s, he’s in the Hall of Fame is that he goes, ‘No, no, that’s for guys like Red Auerbach and Red Holtzman,’” said Hixon who saw the comments on TV. “I’m thinking ‘Pop, you’re just as good as them.’ He goes, ‘I’m just a Division III guy.” and I thought, ‘Hey, Pop, hold on just a minute. I’m just a Division III guy.’”
Hixon was hoping he’d get a chance to talk to Popovich this weekend.
“That’s the guy that I would really love to meet.”
Most of all, he’s glad that this week has arrived.
“My hat goes off to the Hall with all they’ve done. It’s really been a pleasure to watch them operate and they’ve been great to me and so yeah, it’s all good,” Hixon said. “It’s been fun. It’s been a lot of fun and a lot of work but a lot of, a lot of fun and I’m, I’m looking forward to the day and the day following.”
- Massachusetts sports betting is live. Learn more about the best sportsbooks in MA, including the latest Caesars promo code and details on WynnBet’s promo code.