Biography
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
