College football: Former South Fort Myers receiver Antwan Dixon on track to resume career at Kent State

South Fort Myers High senior wide receiver Jeshaun Jones was as surprised as everyone else.

On Antwan Dixon’s first day back in Fort Myers last week only two months after undergoing a bone barrow transplant from his father, former South football coach Anthony Dixon, the younger Dixon didn’t just want to help Jones through a workout.

He laced up his cleats, too.

“I’m thinking he was just going to do what he did today,” Jones said after Dixon – a former South star and budding talent at Kent State University before the blood disorder aplastic anemia threatened more than his career – put a handful of players through a workout Friday at Buckingham Park.

“But he got out there with me. I’m like, ‘This is your first day back.’ It just shows what kind of guy he is. He just wants to work and help other people be better, too. That’s him.”

There was a time earlier this year, Dixon can acknowledge now, when he got scared, when family and friends in Fort Myers and teammates in Kent, Ohio, weren’t thinking at all about football.

After beating benchmarks his doctors in Tampa set for him in his recovery, though, the 20-year-old already has a full-scale return to football mapped out, with the blessing of his doctors and coaches.

Antwan Dixon resolute before bone marrow transplant from father, Anthony

The 5-foot-8 receiver, who missed his sophomore season last fall as his condition worsened, will take online classes this fall and return to Kent State in January to join spring workouts. Dixon will resume competition as a sophomore in the fall of 2018 with three years of eligibility remaining.

“I told him that my doctor said it’s 100 percent chance I’ll recover and that I’ll be able to play football in January,” Dixon said of a talk with Flashes head coach Paul Haynes, who had assured the Dixon family his scholarship would be honored regardless of whether he ever returned to the field.

“He almost jumped through the phone and hugged me.”

Because of bleeding and swelling related to his blood disorder and to the medications he had been taking, Dixon had to have nine teeth pulled and went virtually without food for nearly two months.

His weight plummeted to 125 pounds in March going into nine days of extra stringent chemotherapy, meant to strip Dixon’s blood cells down to nothing to make way for his father’s healthy cells.

“I did get scared,” Dixon said.

“I got a little scared there for a minute,” Jones said.

Blood disorder sidelines South Fort Myers product Antwan Dixon

But the surgery, which was more invasive than most in the already painful category of bone marrow transplants, was a success, with Anthony’s cells boosting his son’s back to healthy levels.

“He saved my life. I can’t thank him any more,” said Antwan, known as Duke to friends, family and teammates. “I just thank God. He gave me the strength to not give up.”

Before long, Dixon was visiting the fitness center in the gated community in Tampa where he stayed with family friends while visiting his doctor three times a week.

“I would go do a leg press resistance bar, bicycle for 10 minutes, crunches, push-ups, shoot hoops, then do cone drills for football,” Dixon said.

Dixon still has to return to Tampa once a week, but he’s gotten his weight back to 162 pounds. By the end of July he’ll only have to return to Tampa once a month.

His doctors told him he could return to football once he reaches his freshman year weight of 175 pounds, which Dixon thinks he’ll be able to do by the start of fall classes this August.

After talking with Haynes, though, Dixon agreed not to rush back to school until January. He’ll be three years removed from his impressive freshman debut in 2015 when he plays again in fall 2018.

“I’m definitely OK with that,” he said. “I was going to go back this fall and just do classes and travel with my team. I miss it a lot. I can’t wait to get back.”

In Ohio, his teammates are inspired by how far he’s already come.

“Duke’s a special guy,” Flashes sophomore running back Will Matthews, a close friend of Dixon’s, said of seeing news footage of Dixon working out on his first full day back in Fort Myers on June 15.

“Knowing everything he’s been through … it just made me want to work harder. I’m in full health, and he’s just getting back. He’s trying to get back healthy and he’s out there giving 100 percent.”

Dixon, who had 517 total yards and three touchdowns as a freshman, still has a lot of ground to gain.

In his recent workout with Jones, one of the top prospects in Southwest Florida with 4.5 speed and offers throughout the power conferences, Dixon couldn’t keep pace.

“I’ve got to get stronger,” he said. “I can look at my hands and tell the difference (in blood levels). Some days they’re really really red, and some days they’re pale. I can feel it when I’m working.”

Football: Former South Fort Myers coach Anthony Dixon returning to sideline at Lehigh

But Dixon, who missed his junior season at South after first being diagnosed with aplastic anemia and going on medications to treat the illness, doesn’t doubt he’ll make a full recovery to the player once regarded as the fastest on Kent State’s roster.

“After the first time I got it I came back stronger,” he said. “So I feel like I can come back stronger than that. I’m going to work back to where I was and better.”

In the meantime, Antwan will join his father on the sidelines this fall at Lehigh Senior, where Anthony Dixon will return to coaching as an assistant after missing last season amid a tumultuous departure from South that coincided with his son’s life-threatening health scare.

“I’m going to help them win in some way,” said Antwan, working with Lehigh’s players before his father is permitted to return to coaching until Aug. 1. “I’m going to be doing this anyway. But I’m doing a little bit extra for him.

“What happened happened as a family,” said Dixon, who is studying communications with the idea of becoming a motivational speaker. “He (Anthony) is happy. My mom’s happy. My little brother’s happy. We’re good. We’re not stressing about anything now. Everything’s falling into place.”

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