Bill Dixon

Bill Dixon was born in 1939 in Peoria, Illinois.

In baseball at WCHS, Dixon was a 4-year starter and letter-winner at first base and pitcher.  He was also a contributor in basketball, track, and cross country, as well as a participant in band and drama.  He was the student council president as a senior.

Dixon earned a scholarship to Bradley University to play both baseball and basketball, but would focus his talents on the diamond once there.  After a stellar three years at first base, he signed a $15,000 contract with the San Francisco Giants in 1960 and began his minor league career.

That first summer, he played for Quincy in the Midwest League, a Class D league.  Before 1963, there were six minor league classifications: AAA, AA, A, B, C, and D. 

He had another strong season for Quincy in 1961, and spent 1962 splitting the season between Springfield, Massachusetts (AA), and Eugene, Oregon (D).

Dixon was called up again to the AA Springfield Giants in 1963 and had a strong spring training, but after a poor start to the season, he was given his release. After a final season in Decatur in Class A baseball in 1964, and not seeing a future in sight, Dixon retired from the game at age 24. 

In the early 1970s, Dixon revived his ball-playing career on the slow-pitch softball circuit, playing for the Decatur Chryslers for a few years and helping them secure a berth in the national tournament in 1970.  In the photo below, Dixon is kneeling by the batboy.

He was hired as a teacher at Forsyth Grade School when he moved to Decatur in 1964.  For the 1965-66 school year, he was hired as an industrial arts teacher at Stephen Decatur High School in Decatur.  In 1967, he was promoted to Dean of Students at the school, a post he would hold until 1982, when, in a cost-cutting move, the school laid off 75 teachers and reassigned 25 administrators to classroom teaching duties, a move Dixon chose not to make.

Bill Dixon was inducted into the Bradley University Hall of Fame in 1964.  He passed away in 2015 in Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin, where he had made his retirement home.

Washington Rewind webpage

Washington Historical Society webpage