Hall of Fame
Derek Dixon was the complete package at guard for the Bentley Falcons during the mid-eighties. He could shoot, board, pick a pocket or two, and was always reliable from the charity stripe. Furthermore, he was dependable. Former Falcon head coach Frank Sullivan was quoted as saying, "Probably no one in New England has been asked to play as many minutes as Derek has for us."
The Billerica High product finished his career at Bentley as a two-year captain who netted 1,642 points and fourth on the career scoring list behind Hall of Famers Brian
Hammel, Todd Orlando and Al Grenfell. Nearly 40 years later, he still ranks 11th on the program’s all-time list. Derek played in every single game throughout his career and averaged better than 35 minutes a game his final three seasons.
Derek started his Bentley career in 1983 by coming off the bench for approximately 20 minutes per game. That was only a fraction of what he would go on to accomplish as a Falcon.
His sophomore year, he moved into the starting unit and helped his team to an Northeast-8 regular season co-championship and an NCAA tournament bid by shooting 57 percent from the field. His basketball resume was beginning to shape up but he was not done.
By the time the 1985-86 season wrapped up, Derek found himself being named as the only non-senior on the five-man first-team All-Northeast-8 squad, as well as the recipient of numerous other honors. All were certainly justified as he was the team leader in scoring (averaging 19 points per game) and rebounding and was second on the team in steals.
His career culminated with an outstanding senior year, one in which he was named team MVP and repeated as a first-team All-Northeast-8 selection. He scored a then-Bentley record 558 points and was the team's top scorer 22 times. When all was done, he was named to the first-team, UPI Division II All-New England and the second-team All-ECAC Division II North squads while making the ECAC Division II Weekly Honor Roll six times. For all of his efforts, Dixon was also the co-recipient of Bentley's Outstanding Male Senior Athlete Award.
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