Marcus Dixon knows how Falcons quarterback Michael Vick is feeling in prison. Every decision ever made is questioned — as is every hope. Each tomorrow seems further away.

"Faith," Dixon said. "That's the only way to get through it."

Dixon, 23, offers this perspective from the Dallas Cowboys' locker room, where names such as DeMarcus Ware, his favorite NFL player, are tacked onto stalls near his. The 6-foot-4, 292-pound defensive end took pictures of this hallowed hall with his cellphone camera and sent them to everyone he felt might share in his joy.

For 15 months, from 2003-04, the former standout high school football player from Rome, was imprisoned, having been found guilty of statutory rape and aggravated child molestation. Dixon, 18 at the time, was acquitted of rape charges, but was found guilty of charges related to having sex with a 15-year-old. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison. The girl maintained that she was raped. In May 2004, the Georgia Supreme Court overturned the verdict. The damage was done. His football scholarship to Vanderbilt was gone, the incident sparked racial division and drew national attention.

Dixon joined the Cowboys as an undrafted free agent in April after a career at Hampton University, a historically black college in Virginia that provided Dixon a new lease on life after his release from prison. Why he wasn't drafted can be debated (for example, NFL talent evaluators rated him as high as a fifth-round pick and as low as an undrafted free agent), but Dixon and others close to him have their suspicions.

"We felt so bad because after every call came and went without him being drafted, you could see the look on his face, like all his dreams were going down the tubes," said Peri Jones, who took in Dixon as a pre-teen and whom he calls his mom. "He looked at us and said, 'This character thing is never going to leave me. This is never going to go away.' "

He hopes to parlay that second chance into a football career that will allow him to wear the Cowboys star on his helmet.

"I think it played a role in me not getting drafted," Dixon said of his imprisonment. "It doesn't bother me none. I'm here with the Cowboys and I'm ready to move on."

Why wasn't he drafted?

Joe Taylor, who coached Dixon at Hampton, said Dixon's past clearly played a part in him not being among the more than 250 chosen in the seven-round NFL draft. Miami drafted Kendall Langford, who played the opposite defensive end to Dixon, in the third round. Taylor said Dixon should have been selected shortly thereafter.

"I would say the Cowboys got a great deal because Kendall went in the third, and there's not a third-round-to-free-agent difference between the two in terms of talent," said Taylor, now the head football at Florida A&M. "As his coach, you've got to figure all of the information that was floating around hurt.

"In our society, we want folks to forgive us when we make mistakes, but when other folks make mistakes, we want the death penalty. From what I know of Marcus, he's going to be just fine."

Dixon stayed on the dean's list at Hampton and was a team captain.

"There were kids acting like practice or meetings were drudgery," Taylor said. "Based on where [Dixon] was for 15 months, that was nothing. It really propelled him to say, 'I've got another chance.' He told us that at one point he thought his life was over. For him to be out there doing something he enjoyed, getting an education free of charge, it was obvious he felt good and that he wasn't going to let that opportunity slip by."

3-year, $1 million deal at stake

Dixon routinely speaks of moving forward, getting beyond the incident that changed lives forever. Yet on Sunday, when he returned to Rome from a three-day rookie minicamp with the Cowboys, he headed straight home after grabbing a sack of burgers from Krystal. He will work out and visit his friend Jeremy Ferguson for a few hours, but other than that, he stays in the house, Jones said. It's a pattern he has established since being granted his freedom on May 4, 2004.

"He's afraid if he's out alone somebody will say he did something," Jones said. "There are people around here that would love to bring him down."

They are in the minority, Jones said. Most she encounters are pulling for Dixon to make the Cowboys' roster and fulfill the three-year, non-guaranteed contract worth more than $1 million.

Though he doesn't want someone on the team solely for sentimental reasons, Cowboys defensive coordinator Brian Stewart said Dixon's story has affected him. He hopes Dixon can make the most of his opportunity. The odds are against Dixon, but this isn't the first time.

"I knew his story because being African-American, I try to keep up with the kind of things that happened to him," Stewart said. "I understood his story, and I guess the best thing is that I'm glad at being part of a staff that is giving him an opportunity. I know a lot of brothers wouldn't have had a chance to get out of that."

Dixon said after being snubbed in the draft, he's out to prove he's more than a potential feel-good story.

"I'm coming in with a chip on my shoulder, letting everybody see that I should have been drafted," Dixon said. "I should have had my name called and it wasn't, so I'm about to play even harder and attack everybody on the field. I approach this as another chapter in my book. I'm with the best organization. I'm ready to move on."

I'm glad that this kid survived all that mess to end up on the Cowboys practice squad , but it's just a matter of time before he's officially on the team.

http://video.nbc5i.com/pl...oid=287802

Bryan Gumbel said:

HBO: What's the most professionally rewarding story for you, looking back over the past 10 years?

Bryant Gumbel: Without question: the Marcus Dixon story. Marcus Dixon is an incredibly gifted athlete and student, who wound up being sentenced to 15 years in prison, for what was consensual high school sex. We had a production assistant find the story in a Georgia paper and brought it to us. We went down, and we did it. After we did the story, everybody jumped on the bandwagon. I think Oprah did it. I think Koppel did it. I think CBS Evening News did it. I think NBC Nightly News did it. MSNBC did it. Everybody then jumped on the bandwagon, and did the story.

It went before the Supreme Court, and he was freed, just recently. I just went back, and spent some time with him and his parents and his lawyer-- it's not often you get a chance to do a piece that impacts somebody's life, in such a positive fashion.

I was teasing with Frank Deford, I said, "You know, we don't keep score on these things. But if you look at the Marcus Dixon piece, it created an incredible buzz. It won an Emmy. And it helped free a young man and give him a second chance at life." I am not necessarily sure you can get more out of one piece than that.
[Edited 8/31/08 21:55pm]