The Pomona-Pitzer Batting Cages were donated by Tabitha and Michael Lewis in loving memory of their daughter, Dixie Lewis '24, who tragically passed away in 2021.  

This extremely generous donation will make a huge impact on the Pomona-Pitzer Softball program. Athletes will be able to train longer, more efficiently, and around class schedules in a state-of-the-art facility. 

The total cage space measures 60 x 120 feet and includes four world-class batting cage tunnels; each measuring 15 x 30 feet. Two of the four tunnels will be equipped with pitching rubbers – so they can be utilized as pitching bullpens as well as batting cages.  All four cages will have a turf surface and brand-new LED lights for access during the early morning and evening practices.   

All-around, these facilities will greatly improve the student-athlete experience in a number of ways:

• Increase our batting cages from one previous tunnel to four tunnels; allowing many more athletes to train at the same time.
• The turf surface will allow athletes to use the space more often than a dirt surface.
• The lights will allow athletes to utilize the cages after dark and around academic class schedules – greatly extending our window to practice at the field, especially at the times of the year when limited daylight is a barrier for team training.
• The cages will be 14 feet in height – making them much safer for the athletes to use.

Sagehen Softball and the entire Sagehen Athletics community are deeply grateful for this special honor and the inspiration Dixie's legacy will have on student-athletes for generations to come. 

Remembering Dixie Lewis

On May 25th, 2021, Dixie Lee Lewis died in a car accident. She was coming to the end of her freshman year at Pomona College and would have played on its softball team, had the season not been cancelled in response to a global pandemic. She was our daughter, and our sister, and we loved her more than words can say, and continue to search for ways to honor her life. This batting cage is one small gesture in that direction. It's a place in which, had she lived, Dixie would have spent countless hours, working to get better at the game she loved. 

Dixie had many qualities. One was courage. She was brave. She didn't shy from a fight. She could also be sweet, and sensitive, but that side of her tended to be dismissed from the room the moment some opponent entered it. She ruined roughly three hundred family board games the moment she realized some other family member was going to win. Her competitiveness—and her own sense of herself as a fighter- was at least partly responsible for another of her most striking qualities: diligence. People sometimes outplayed her, but no one outworked her. If she was going to lose, it was never going to be for lack of effort. She was never afraid to show that she cared. She was never afraid to try. Dixie played the drums. She'd excelled as a student at Berkeley High School and thought maybe she wanted to become a biologist. She had a gift for coaching, and for teaching. She had people she deeply loved, who deeply loved her. 

She threw herself into all that she did, and softball was one of those things. She worked hard at it, and gave up a lot for it: parties, free time, time to just lay around and do nothing. All because she got it into her head, at a very young age, that she wanted to be a college softball player. She never got to be a college softball player—not really. But she did have a moment to reflect upon her sacrifice. That moment occurred on the very spot these cages have been built. She'd just finished playing in the national championships with her travel team, the Cal Nuggets, not far from this spot. She'd also just agreed with Pomona's coach, Joanne Ferguson, to become a Sagehen. She was beyond thrilled with her new coach, and her future school and her future life. And she wanted to visit this place, just to see it again. As she walked a lap around this softball field she was reminded of all she had given up to get here. The parties, the free time, the time to just lay around and do nothing. "Was it worth it?" she was asked. And on this very spot she stopped and smiled. "Look where it got me." 

This cage has been built to honor Dixie Lewis. It's a place to work, and to get better. To try. Because when you try, you summon Dixie's spirit. 

Given with Love by Tabitha, Michael, Quinn and Walker Lewis