A heartbreaking report, as the Sooners just lost one of their top players.

A heartbreaking report, as the Sooners just lost one of their top players.

According to former Sooners coach Barry Switzer, Rickey Dixon, the former hard-hitting OU defensive back who had a fondness for picking off opposing quarterbacks, passed away on Saturday following a protracted battle with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

Switzer wrote on Twitter, “He passed away in his DeSoto, Texas, home with his family around him.” “Among the best players to ever play for the Sooners was him.”

Dixon was 53 years old. His four children and his wife, Lorraine, survive him.

Dixon graduated from Dallas’ Wilmer-Hutchins High School with a light recruiting class. No schools in the Southwest Conference made him an offer.

However, Switzer perceived a unique quality in the thin defensive back.

He appeared to be a complete failure, Switzer said to The Oklahoman in 2015. “We’d watch films of him, and he played so big, but when you met him, he didn’t pass the eye test.”

In addition to encouraging him to gain weight, Switzer informed the incoming freshmen, which included Troy Aikman, Keith Jackson, and Lydell Carr, that Dixon was probably going to be the best of the group despite his diminutive size as soon as he arrived on the OU campus.

In addition to earning all-Big Eight honors in 1986, he assisted the Sooners in winning the 1985 national championship. Dixon was outstanding in his last college season (1987), setting a school record with nine interceptions that is still in place.

Dixon’s most memorable Sooners performance occurred in the 1987 game against No. 1 Nebraska. He intercepted two passes, the second of which helped No. 2 OU win and send the Sooners to the Orange Bowl after a 17-7 road victory.

He was unanimously selected as an All-American that season and, along with Miami’s Bennie Blades, shared the Jim Thorpe Award for best defensive back in college football.

After Darrell Royal, he has the second-most career interceptions in OU history with 17.

In 2019, he was admitted to the College Football Hall of Fame.

Dixon started to lose weight in 2013 and experienced sporadic pain, which he and his spouse initially thought was arthritis.

However, in July 2013, after experiencing difficulty speaking, he visited a physician who made the diagnosis of ALS.

Physicians informed the family that repeated hits to the head during his football career may have contributed to the illness.

Doctors told him he would probably only have three to five years left to live after his diagnosis. Dixon managed to reach seven.

Dixon lifted the spirits of those around him despite the disease that confined him to a wheelchair, eventually took away his voice, and required him to eat through a feeding tube.

“He’s truly our local hero,” Lorraine Dixon remarked in 2019. “He is the one who sustains our momentum.”

As Dixon’s induction into the College Football Hall of Fame drew near, he was feted at an OU game in 2019. Dixon, whose health prevented him from traveling to the stadium, cheered when he received a standing ovation while watching the game from Switzer’s nearby home.