Lady Raiders senior inspired by her single mother

For Hurst L.D. Bell senior volleyball player Lezlee Dixon, there’s more to the game than winning and losing.

“I play to make my mom proud and to show others that even if you have hardships in life, there is always a way to do what you love,” Dixon said.

“My mom is my biggest role model in life. She is one of the strongest people I know. She has been through a lot and had always found a way to fight through and still be a amazing person.”

Dixon and her older siblings, a 25-year-old sister who played basketball and volleyball and a 20-year-old brother who played football and ran track, were raised by their mom, a single parent. Despite the challenges that go with such a parental task, Dixon said her mother encouraged her children to participate in athletics and always found a way to be there.

“She gets to every match and club tournament I have,” Dixon said. “My mom was an athlete. She did dance, diving, swimming and tennis growing up. She was actually the first female on the diving team at her high school.”

Dixon started as a basketball player but gravitated to volleyball as she entered high school. Over time, she said she fell more in love with the sport, seeing most of her closest friends participating.

“My freshman coach really made me see how fun and competitive volleyball is,” Dixon said. “Every practice and game I learn something new about myself and how hard I can push myself.”

She said, with all due respect to other sports, she also felt a family feeling in volleyball that she didn’t find elsewhere. For each athlete, the sport with which they connect most differs, and for her it was volleyball. And family is of utmost importance to her.

“You cannot win without being a family with the person you are playing next to. These girls that I play with have become my best friends and my family,” she said.

First-year varsity volleyball coach Jinni Walker said Dixon is the epitome of role models to fellow teammates, something she believes will lead to success throughout her life.

“I know she will be successful,” Walker said. “On our trip to Granbury, she was taking care of everyone’s laundry, basically mothering all the girls.”

Still, it was difficult leaving basketball. She played both sports as a freshman and sophomore, even making varsity in basketball as a sophomore. But eventually, she felt she had to choose.

“I wasn’t the best basketball player, but I tried my hardest to bring something to my team. I loved and played basketball for as long as I could remember,” Dixon said. “I planned on playing [both] longer, but because of conflicts with club volleyball I had to quit last year.”

Dixon wants to continue playing in college. However, she said more important is going to a school that has a good education and history program.

“I would love to play in college if I could, but if I don’t, then I know it is because that is not what God has planned for me,” she said. “I want to become a teacher after I graduate, because some of the people that have pushed me to be great and inspired me are teachers I have had.”

Dixon is also involved in the National Honor Society and Mu Alpha Theta. She is active in her youth group at North Richland Hills Baptist Church, and she plans to start volunteering at the Gladney Center for Adoption after hearing a speaker in her child development class.

Walker lauded Dixon’s consistency to be inspirational.

“She has had so many reasons she could have said ‘I can’t,’ but she hasn’t,” Walker said. “She pushes herself as hard as she is capable of pushing.”

And as she works to keep making her mother proud, Dixon said she’s also ready to go wherever her faith leads her.

“The thing that sticks with me most through all of my success and failures is that God has a plan for me,” she said.

This story was originally published October 3, 2016 at 12:07 PM with the headline "Lady Raiders senior inspired by her single mother."