Dixon-to-UA in 2009 was just a rumor, former Wildcats AD says

SAN DIEGO — In a strange kind of way, Saturday was 2009 all over.

Sean Miller was Xavier’s coach, while the man who was rumored as a possible candidate to take over the UA program in 2009, Jamie Dixon, was preparing for an NCAA Tournament game.

Dixon, who was a part of TCU’s last two NCAA Tournament victories as a player and coach, was among a list of potential names to succeed Hall of Fame head coach Lute Olson, after he rebuilt Pitt into a consistent winner. The job eventually went to Miller, the coach at Xavier — the school he returned to on Saturday.

“That was a long time ago. I’ve been a rumor for a lot of jobs,” Dixon said with a smirk. “I don’t know. Half of them I don’t even know about, so that’s intriguing.”

Dixon recalled Saturday that succeeding Olson would have been an intimidating responsibility.

“I remember anybody following him; that guy and what he did to that program, it’s going to be an immense challenge,” Dixon said.

Olson retired at the start of the season, giving then-UA athletic director Jim Livengood months to monitor a lengthy list of coaches. As the chair of the NCAA Division I men’s basketball committee, Livengood had access to private team practices.

“I saw them do more than just coach,” Livengood said Saturday by phone. “You can go to a game and watch a guy coach, that’s one thing. But when you watch them in a closed practice, you really find out who does the coaching, what they do, player relationships and all those things.”

Livengood said he developed a “great deal of respect” for Dixon.

“I was around a lot of national teams and saw him practice, saw the meetings, all those things,” Livengood said. “One of the best things about that committee is being able to see coaches in closed practices and watch them.”

Was Dixon a candidate for the Arizona vacancy, before Miller was named head coach?

“He probably could’ve been,” said Livengood. “We didn’t have a committee and Robert Shelton was our university president. The person I used in the search process, because I’ve known him for so long, was C.M. Newton, who has since passed away. C.M. was the AD at Kentucky and was a basketball coach at Vanderbilt — just a longtime figure in college basketball.”

A native of Burbank, California, Dixon had the West Coast ties Arizona was looking for. Dixon’s defensive-minded approach didn’t fit Arizona at the time, Livengood said.

“Our fan was used to what Lute had brought and Lute changed over the number of years,” Livengood said. “That was one of the greatest things. … We wanted to end up with somebody that wasn’t going to be the next Lute Olson. We weren’t trying to replicate that, but we wanted to replicate many of the values that Lute had.

“How players were treated, recruiting, who we were going to play and maybe not replicate that style of play, but maybe to that degree. And it was just such a great job. Arizona was always a great job and Lute did such a phenomenal job in 25 years.”

Livengood said “there were about 15-16” coaches who interviewed for the job in 2009, including former USC head coach Tim Floyd, who flew to Tucson to interview.

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Dixon was not one of them.

“Most of the time, and it’s even more so now with social media, those rumors were things someone got from social media or somebody put out something,” Livengood said. “I talked to a lot of people, and again, I had an advantage because I had enough time with Lute’s retirement and the interim group that was in there, and I had seen so many coaches.”

Added Livengood: “There were a lot of misnomers during that time. It was a very interesting time because when you’re going after someone to replace Lute, it’s just not like an everyday job on the street.”

Even Mark Few, UA coach Tommy Lloyd’s former boss at Gonzaga, was linked to the job.

“There were so many rumors in terms of conversations I had with Mark Few, which never happened,” Livengood said.

The hiring process in 2009 “got a little nerve-wracking in late February and early March,” Livengood said, because most of the names he focused on were still playing in the NCAA Tournament. That year, Miller and Xavier went to the Sweet 16.

“Most of the people you wanted to have that final conversation with were still playing in the tournament. We tried to be very careful with regards to interrupting someone with their own program and their kids playing, because we did value what a contract meant, especially if someone did that to us. It got a little nerve-wracking in late February and early March.”

Nearly 13 years later, Livengood is happy with his choice to hire Miller.

“I thought Sean did an outstanding job at Arizona,” he said. “A couple more buckets and there could’ve been some Final Fours in there. Who knows what would’ve happened with some of those teams. But that’s yesterday’s news. If I had to do it again, I would’ve done the exact same thing,” Livengood said. “He was the right person, right time, right fit. Even now, I think Tommy Lloyd is a tremendous hire.”

Livengood remains a fan of Dixon as coach, even though he’ll be rooting for Arizona on Saturday.

“Jamie is a fantastic basketball coach. I don’t know if he gets the credit that he should, because these are tough jobs. Some people say, ‘Well he had all this success at Pitt, why hasn’t he blown the doors off at TCU?’ I’m not saying that, but you hear all these wonderment things. These jobs are tough. It’s all about time, place and fit. If those three things can work, they can be the magic bullet in the hiring process,” Livengood said.

“Time, place and fit, that may sound nebulous or cliche, but I’ve always felt that way regardless of the sport. Jamie is a good one — a great one. I don’t want him to be a great one (Sunday) night. I want him to be a good one, but not a great one (Sunday) night.”

For Dixon, coaching against Arizona on Sunday won’t be a reminder of his rumored interest in the head coaching vacancy, but rather his mentor in Olson.

“Watching what he did and what he built, and all those guys, and then seeing him, what he became,” Dixon said. “And then I got to know him through coaching NAU, and he became a mentor to me. He was very, very special. … But the resources are unbelievable. It’s always a job that — or school or program that I have just watched from afar because Coach Olson was to me — did the most unbelievable work that’s been done in college basketball.

“I think what he did at U of A and what he built, the following, was just amazing. He is a mentor, and I cherished every moment with him. We used to go on Nike trips and clinics, and I did a lot of different things with him, and he just meant a lot to me and my family and my wife.”