After the final buzzer sounded in last week’s women’s basketball game, the Lady Crusaders defeated Muskingum 66-39.
Coach Dixie Jeffers, in her 29th season as the women’s head coach, notched her 600th win in her Capital career.
Jeffers continues to build on her record as the all-time winningest Capital coach and Ohio Athletic Conference (OAC) women’s basketball coach.
When asked whether she could have possibly imagined the success she’s had when she took the position, Jeffers was quick to point to why she coaches in the first place.
“[Coaching] was about getting kids to enjoy something that I love as much as I do,” Jeffers said. “It’s not about the wins and the losses; it’s about developing young people to move forward in life and to be competitive in a very competitive society. The wins just happen because everything else was right.”
Every year, Jeffers looks to implement a mindset of personal drive into her teams.
“You’ve got to have kids that want to drive themselves in the classroom and on the court,” Jeffers said. “It’s an inner drive that you can’t teach, and it’s about wanting to be the best you can be.”
However, when it comes down to success on the court, Jeffers firmly believes the key is in the players.
“You’ve got to have players to win. Every coach from [Duke men’s basketball coach] Krzyzewski on…down will tell you that if you have the right horses in the barn, you can ride them pretty well,” Jeffers said. “But, if you have broken-down horses, they won’t ride very well. That’s the best analogy I can give. It comes down to the talent and the players. They have to buy in to the team chemistry, and they have to be resilient.”
When reaching coaching milestones like this one, Jeffers keeps a steady mindset.
“[I] never think about it. What goes through my mind is thinking how we can get better and what we have to do as a program as a whole to sustain the tradition,” Jeffers said. “The tradition of this program is more important to me than what happens for me, personally. Even though I’m getting recognized, it’s about those kids that went out and were able to win those games–I was just in charge.”
The most memorable aspect of her journey at the helm of the Lady Crusaders is the people and the players that have come through her program.
“It’s the people that I have been able to be around as I touch their lives and they touch mine,” Jeffers said. “I’m a strong believer that people are put in your path in life for a reason, and you have to figure out that reason together.”
There is a sense of irony in this year’s team being the ones who have earned her 600th career win at Capital.
“We have faced an incredible amount of adversity this year,” Jeffers said. “I think it is, in a way, ironic that this number comes around with as much adversity as we’re facing. You have to be resilient for what we’ve been through with all the injuries and so forth. I’ve got great kids; they are part of the journey and they are part of the tradition.”
The one thing that Jeffers holds above all else when it comes to the game of basketball is the tradition of Capital’s women’s basketball team.
“It’s an incredible tradition that this program has when you look at the number of wins, championships, All-Americans, Academic All-OAC kids we’ve produced,” Jeffers said.
In her time at Capital, the Lady Crusaders have won two national titles, had four Final Four appearances, and one national runner-up finish.
