updated 9:46 p.m. ET April 7, 2006

Determined to get her first real job, Maggie Dixon drove straight from Los Angeles to the DePaul campus. At center court of Alumni Hall, she waited for coach Doug Bruno.

Bruno already had plans that evening for steak and beer at his favorite Chicago restaurant, so he told her to come back the next day for an interview. As his final question, he asked what Dixon liked to do in her spare time.

“She said, ’I like to knit and read good books,”’ Bruno said Friday, laughing. “Maggie had the gift of Irish blarney.”

In her meteoric rise in the women’s basketball coaching ranks, Dixon did more than teach Xs and Os and turn Army into an NCAA tournament team. She shared her passion, on and off the court.

Dixon died Thursday at 28 following a sudden episode of irregular heartbeat, mourned by a constant flow of military people, friends and family.

Bruno remembered how she worked at Sorriso’s restaurant, an Italian joint full of character and great characters, during her first year at DePaul.

“She had gift of being able to talk to paupers and princes equally,” Bruno said. “If you asked me how old she was, I’d tell you 38-to-42. And I mean that as compliment to her maturity.”

She knew how to let her hair down, too.

Dixon played at the University of San Diego, and former coach Kathy Marpe remembered a little skit. Dixon and a teammate dressed up as Sonny and Cher for a routine that her father videotaped.

“She was a fun-loving person from the beginning, one of the pranksters on the team,” Marpe said. “As a coach, you love to have them around.”

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He coaches the men’s team at Pittsburgh. The day after Army won the Patriot League conference title game and earned its first NCAA berth, Maggie was at Madison Square Garden, an animated presence behind the Pitt bench.

The Dixons were believed to be the first brother and sister to coach in the NCAA tournament in the same year. Always close, they both lost on the same day.

“She was a successful coach, but you’d see her and she’d say, ’I did this with Jamie’ and ’My parents and I are doing that,”’ Arizona State coach Charli Turner-Thorne said. “Sometimes as a young coach, you put those things aside.”

Turner-Thorne was at Northern Arizona when she recruited Dixon out of high school. Last weekend, Turner-Thorne saw her friend at the Final Four in Boston.

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Jae C. Hong / AP

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