BILLINGS — The Midland Roundtable is one step closer to unveiling its Athlete of the Year winners on Wednesday night. The latest finalist is equally as strong at his two favorite sports.
Billings Central’s Chrishon Dixon loves both football and basketball. He helped earn state championships in both as part of his senior campaign for the Rams.
But one of Dixon’s coolest accolades was an appearance in last month’s issue of Sports Illustrated. Tiger Woods graced the cover after his improbable Masters win. Dixon was found inside among SI’s Faces in the Crowd feature, and he was as surprised as anyone.
“I didn’t know that until I heard everybody talking about it,” Dixon said. “It was like, ‘Have you seen Sports Illustrated? Have you seen your article?’ I was like, ‘What? What are you talking about?'”
Then it occurred to him just who took the picture — and when.
“I seen the picture and I was like, ‘I know exactly when that picture was taken,'” Dixon recalled with a smile. “It was because Stergs (Rams basketball coach Jim Stergar), he came and took that picture and didn’t even tell me that I was going to be in the cover, so I was like, ‘Oh, that’s pretty cool.'”
Dixon had multiple scholarship offers for basketball and football (including football at Montana State) but ultimately landed just a few blocks from his high school at MSU Billings, where he’s eager to crack the basketball rotation for Mick Durham and Bobby Howard.
The Midland Roundtable will announce one male and one female winner at the Athlete of the Year banquet on Wednesday, May 15 at the Billings Hotel and Convention Center.