Brandon Dixon (left) and Emma Gaines visit on campus with William Fisher, Ole Miss Athletics Foundation director of development. The couple has made a donation toward improving facilities for student-athletes at the University of Mississippi. Photo by Bill Dabney/UM Foundation
UM graduates make gift to provide holistic support for student-athletes
University of Mississippi alumni Brandon Dixon and his wife, Emma Gaines, hope their gift to Ole Miss athletics will help give student-athletes the extended knowledge they need to proactively navigate life after graduation.
“Think about this: Our university will give an academic scholarship to help someone who has great capability in music cultivate that talent,” said Dixon, who earned a master’s degree in educational leadership from Ole Miss in 2003. “I view athletes the same way.
“These young men and women have amazing abilities, so let’s cultivate those talents and give them the skills and education they’ll need later in life.”
Gaines earned a bachelor’s degree in biological science in 2016 and a nursing degree in 2018.
The Oxford couple made a gift of $125,000 to CHAMPIONS.NOW., the Ole Miss Athletics Foundation‘s fundraising campaign to improve facilities for student-athletes.
Dixon, a tax attorney and principal of Trust Point Capital Partners LLC, has a history of making opportunities happen for himself and he wants UM student-athletes to have similar advantages.
“For instance, let’s build up their athletic careers now and help them understand the value they should get out of it,” he said. “Then, give them the skills they’ll need to manage their future finances and their health down the road, to work with PR and the public, to manage their image and to understand branding and strategies for making opportunities happen for themselves.”
William Fisher, OMAF director of development, said he’s grateful for the couple’s desire to support student-athletes comprehensively.
“It’s something we strive to do within Ole Miss athletics,” Fisher said. “We want to prepare our student-athletes for competition in the Southeastern Conference, as well as for life after graduation.
“Because of Brandon’s experience working in development himself, he knows the importance of private support. “
While working toward his master’s degree, Dixon served as a graduate assistant in the Dean of Students Office and later in University Development‘s Office of Annual Giving. There, he realized he had an interest in advancement.
“I’ll never forget driving down Sorority Row one day and looking at all the students’ high-end cars,” Dixon said. “I started thinking that there’s got to be an opportunity there.
“So, I looked at what other universities were doing in terms of reaching out to parents for private support and I realized we weren’t doing anything.”
The self-proclaimed “scrappy” student approached UM administrators who told him they would hire him as director of parent programs if he could raise the funds to support his position. And so began the Ole Miss Family Leadership Council, which has become a burgeoning source of private support for the university helmed by Brett Barefoot, UM executive director for central development.
“It was really just born out of that idea,” said Dixon who ultimately left Ole Miss to pursue a law degree at Mississippi College and a master’s degree in tax from the University of Florida.
“I’ve always been one of these people who look for an opportunity to make something happen. I’ve never just had opportunity open its doors to me.”
As an undergraduate at Eastern Kentucky University, the Franklin, Kentucky, native negotiated his way onto the football team as a running back by telling the coach he could convince three top players from his high school to join the team.
“I did get to dress out a couple of games and had some memorable moments for myself,” Dixon said. “It was worth it because it showed me that, No. 1, I could do something hard and go beyond what others might expect of me. No. 2, I learned to never sell myself short; there’s always a way to get where you need to be.
“Creating my own path, creating my own way, that’s what I’ve always done.”
After law school, Dixon found finding a job difficult because even seasoned lawyers were out of work due to the 2008 recession. He offered to work for free and once again negotiated his way into a position that ultimately paid off – practicing tax law until four years ago. when he left the firm to become full-time outside general counsel for a family office.
Through that experience, he met his current business partners “and now to bring it full circle, we are out there on the forefront of sponsors providing tax-advantaged investments.”
“A lot of what we’re doing is on that path,” Dixon said. “I look back and that’s something I’ve done ever since I was at Ole Miss. Ole Miss was instrumental in where I am now. It opened the doors.”
Dixon’s and Gaines’ gift will help open similar doors for UM student-athletes.
In the renovated Manning Center, supported by gifts to CHAMPIONS. NOW., Ole Miss athletes train in a 10,710-square-foot weight room and have access to counseling and sport psychology services, nutrition services, and a range of massage therapy, training aids and new concussion rehabilitation technology.
The Van Devender Family Foundation Locker Room got a complete makeover and was expanded to include a barber shop, hydro tanks, plunge pools, a players’ lounge and fueling station.
By Bill Dabney
