Braveheart

MONROE — Alan Dickson is stubborn, competitive and can put a positive spin on the bleakest of situations.

So what did Dickson, the girls basketball coach at Monroe High School, do after suffering a heart attack while playing the game he loves?

Dickson, 59, finished that game.

He played another.

He tried to talk the group — which included a member of the Monroe boys varsity team Dickson was trying to guard — into playing one more game. Dickson’s team hadn’t won, and there are few things he hates more than losing.

Next stop, hospital?

Not exactly.

"He went and got a haircut," said Chris Dickson, his wife of 38 years. "It was unbelievable to me."

"Best haircut I’ve ever had," said Alan Dickson, happy to have a reason to smile.

Despite suffering a major heart attack — an event that only 56 percent survive — Dickson returned to the Monroe gym to coach basketball six weeks after the ordeal.

Dickson admits now that he knew something wasn’t right on the afternoon of Friday Oct. 3. He considered that he might be having a heart attack when he stepped out of the game with pain gripping his chest, but ruled it out. He walked it off like someone might shake off a turned ankle and checked back in.

After the group decided not to play another game — which may have saved his life — Dickson called his wife and mentioned he wasn’t feeling well. They had planned to meet on Friday evening and head out for a weekend getaway. When they spoke again after the all important trip to the barber, she could tell he was growing more concerned.

"He told me it felt like a truck was sitting on his chest," Chris Dixon said. "I said, ‘OK, that’s not good.’ From everything I’d heard, that was probably a bad sign."

Though she can laugh about it now, it wasn’t funny then. She drove him to Group Health in Everett. Within five minutes, Dickson was in an ambulance on his way to Providence Hospital. On the way there, he told the paramedics he had once said that Pete Maravich’s death on a basketball court "wasn’t a bad way to go." He told them he’d like to take that comment back.

"They weren’t laughing," said Dickson, an Indiana native who played basketball and football at Butler University in Indianapolis.

He wasn’t mad at himself for giving everything — well, almost everything — he had on the basketball court that day. His thoughts were not filled with "Why me?" He scolded himself for falling victim to weekend-warrior syndrome. Dickson went all out on the court, but did little in between the games to keep himself in shape.

Dickson spent three days at Providence, which included an angioplasty procedure to unclog an artery. It wasn’t long before his six children and his wife began asking him to hang up his whistle for good.

"My initial reaction was, ‘That’s it, you’re not going to coach again, you’re done,’" Chris Dickson said.

The coach admits thoughts of quitting crossed his mind. It wouldn’t be an easy decision. The Bearcats, he knew, were as talented as they have ever been. Led by 6-foot-6 center Kirsten Thompson, the exciting play of point guard Chelsey Zimmerman and more shooters than you’d find at a shooting range in Idaho, he wasn’t sure he could walk away from Monroe’s best shot at a state title.

He soon found out that he’d have to change a lot of things, but coaching did not have to be one of them.

"No more stops at the donut shop," said Dickson, whose teams have qualified for the state playoffs in five of the last eight seasons. "I just drive by."

It was a doctor at Providence who saved Dixon’s coaching career not long after perhaps saving his life. The doctor sat down with the family and explained that it likely wasn’t pacing courtside that clogged the artery.

He’s walking more. He’s rediscovering vegetables. He even sneaks out to the gym for a harmless game of "horse" once in a while.

"He says he’s playing horse," said Chris Dixon, a self-appointed Alan Dickson critic. "I think he’s pulling the wool over my eyes."

Though Dickson is not a coach who yells and screams much, he is as intense as they come. Especially when he’s the one playing the game.

He believes a new perspective will allow him not to take the losses quite so hard. Zimmerman is glad Dickson will be the one directing them toward what they hope will be another trip to state. She said she hasn’t seen much difference in his demeanor at practice.

"He said he’s not going to be up and down (off the bench during games) as much this year," said Zimmerman, a senior. "He said ‘I’m just going to let you guys play.’

"We’ll see."

Some habits die hard.