By Jim Fryar

jfryar@joplinglobe.com

Dustin Dixon is a runner who doesn’t know how to take “no” for an answer.

Told he may never run again after a serious injury, Dixon has set out to prove everyone wrong.

What he doesn’t know is if reaching that goal will be enough to help Missouri Southern win another men’s MIAA cross country championship this weekend.

Time spent recovering from a severely broken leg, and the side effects of that injury, have taken Dixon on a circuitous journey since he was the MIAA champion in 2007.

He’s stronger mentally and perhaps as strong physically. But the senior from St. Clair, Mo., says he is having to relearn how to get past just running and resume racing at an elite level.

“I’m better than I was two years ago,” Dixon said after a Wednesday workout. “The difference is, the conference is a lot better. If I run the same race that I did two years ago, I’d probably be eighth or ninth now. Everyone has continued to get a lot better the past two years while I’ve basically been doing nothing.”

What Dixon has actually been doing is recovering from an injury so severe that he had been told he might never run again.

“Dustin is the kind of guy that, when you tell him ‘No,’ he’s going to prove you wrong,” said Tom Rutledge, Southern men’s track and cross country coach.

“The doctors didn’t tell me that (never running again),” Dixon said. “They did tell me that if I didn’t have surgery, I would never run again because the leg was so severely damaged. They said there would be a lot of physical therapy.

“There were athletes on runners’ forums who said I would never run again. I had to deal with that kind of criticism and with my own thoughts and doubts.”

That was especially tough to take for someone who had such a successful college resume. During Dixon’s first three seasons of cross country, Missouri Southern won three conference titles. He was seventh in the MIAA Championships as a freshman and third as a sophomore before winning the meet as a junior.

The Lions went on to earn their first South Central Regional title during Dixon’s junior year. He was looking forward to the national meet, which the Lions hosted that fall.

That day turned into a disaster.

“I knew it was broken as soon as I felt the pop,” Dixon said of the leg injury. “I had been having a lot of pain and then, just past the five-mile mark, I felt the pop. If I had gone down, I not sure if would have been able to get up.”

Instead, incredibly, Dixon kept going and finished the race, earning All-American honors with a 23rd-place finish.

“It was miserable,” Dixon said. “I don’t know how I did it. But, at Missouri Southern, we don’t quit. I don’t think there are any of my teammates who would have quit. ... It was just putting one foot in front of the other.”

But that continued pounding on an already-broken leg magnified the damage, chipping away segments of bone and splitting the bone above the break.

After one early attempt to return fizzled due to lack of conditioning, when he wasn’t able to train, Dixon sat out the 2008 cross country season. He returned to competition for indoor and outdoor track but showed only occasional flashes of his winning form.

First there was the difficulty of running after having a plate and screws removed from his leg, which began swelling. Then Dixon found he had altered his stride to compensate for the injury, leading to more physical problems.

“I had to do a lot of therapy to adjust to that,” he said. “I actually ran well indoors (last winter). But the outdoor was kind of treacherous. I just wasn’t in shape at all and it was embarrassing when I ran at the outdoor conference meet.”

A long summer of training now has Dixon looking forward to his first MIAA cross country championship in two years. The meet will be held Saturday at Emporia State.

Dixon wants to help push the Lions back to the top of the conference after Southern finished third last fall. The Lions had won MIAA cross country titles in seven of the previous eight years.

“We don’t necessarily have one of the (individual) frontrunners,” Dixon said, “but we have a really strong pack. There are some teams in the conference, maybe three, that will be able to put a runner in front of us. We don’t want anyone to put two in front of us. Brennan (Benkert) and Aki (Nummela) and I are responsible for making certain that doesn’t happen. ... Our 3-4-5 runners are better than anyone else in the conference.”

Rutledge believes Dixon is ready to again make an impact at the MIAA Championships.

“He’s a smarter racer now,” the Southern coach said. “He’s done a great job this year. He’s really matured and he’s been a great team leader. I just know he’s ready for a big race.”

The race, and not the running, is the nagging concern for Dixon.

“That’s what I’m really struggling with right now, learning to race again,” he said. “You have to go out hard, so you’re in a position to race. Then when you literally feel like you can’t go any further, it’s at that point where you have to push it even harder, to push through that wall that athletes talk about.

“That’s what college distance running is all about, learning how to race. It’s been so long since I’ve been fast that it feels foreign to me, but I’m making strides every week.

“Coach Rutledge has been encouraging. He keeps reminding me that I won this race two years ago. Legitimately, my goal is to be in the top five. I know I’m capable of running with these guys.”