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From football to finance, Kent Dixon made a difference

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Anyone walking through the gates to the football field at Assumption College can quickly learn about Kent Dixon thanks to a monument dedicated to him.

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But there was so much more than football to Mr. Dixon, who passed away in his 62nd year on Feb. 27 after battling Parkinson’s disease for a decade.

“He was definitely a really great family man, philanthropic and a good business man,” said his brother, Martin.

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“I loved him …. He treated his family great and treated his community great.”

Mr. Dixon was known for his passion for and dedication to local football. He started the football program at Assumption in 2000 and helped in many other ways, including donating to the construction costs of the fields at St. John’s College and Pauline Johnson Collegiate.

He also coached with the Brantford Bisons football program.

After attending St. John’s and then the University of Waterloo, Mr. Dixon began working in the late 1970s with Millard, Rouse and Rosebrugh, an accounting firm now known as Millards. He became a partner in the mid-1980s.

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“He was very effective,” said Martin Dixon, who is also a partner with the firm. “He was a strong partner.”

In 1997, Mr. Dixon left Millards to become chief financial officer of Marks Lumber and then started Reciprocal Opportunities Inc., or ROI Group., a mortgage lending company.

“I had always known what he had done and about his presence in the community,” Darren Neziol, who joined ROI in 2015, said of Mr. Dixon.

“Ultimately, I wanted to learn from him because I wanted to learn from the best,” he said.

“You would tell him a deal and he would know if it was something good or something bad and what to look out for. He was a very smart guy but he had this gut instinct that was basically never, ever wrong.”

Neziol said that he was aware of Mr. Dixon’s philanthropic side, which among other things included sponsoring and donating to the Brantford Blast hockey team and the Stedman Community Hospice.

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“He honestly was always trying to give others an advantage or an edge that wouldn’t typically be available to them.”

Mr. Dixon was an avid runner and lifted weights. When he no longer could do those things, he turned to bocce, which he was able to play even in a wheelchair.

Mr. Dixon was introduced to bocce by Dante Dalia, a retired co-op teacher at Assumption, who also got Mr. Dixon involved with the high school’s annual mission trips to help those in need in other communities. Mr. Dixon went on about a dozen mission trips across North America.

“He was very supportive,” said Dalia, adding that Mr. Dixon also contributed financially to the trips.

“Towards the end, he was covering the majority of the costs. If it wasn’t for him, I think we probably would have had to stop.”

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He said Mr. Dixon also was instrumental in helping with the first student-built Habitat for Humanity Home in Canada.

Dalia said Mr. Dixon became obsessed with bocce.

“That was his escape.”

Dalia said Mr. Dixon demonstrated determination in all he did.

“Whether it was his business, his family life or his volunteer life, that determination was evident. He was a strong person.”

Mr. Dixon is survived by his wife of 37 years, Cheryl , and their children, Holly-Ann, Mark, Kendra and Mitchell.

Martin Dixon said a celebration of life for his brother scheduled for April 9 has been cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. He said he hopes it will be rescheduled.

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