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Cedric Dixon had to learn how to make the best of the circumstances in his life.

After getting his degree from the University of Alabama-Birmingham, he thought basketball would be his ticket to success, but after some setbacks trying to play in Europe, he returned to Alabama with no money and no job. He even had to return his signing bonus he earned for making the team.

The Dallas County native details his trials in his new book “After the Ball Stops Bouncing.”

“When your career is over, what do you do at that point when you know that you are not able to play anymore?” Dixon said. “That’s basically, like, what the book is about.”

Dixon started his education at Brantley Elementary and then went on to Dallas County High School. Each day, he rode the bus to school nearly 30 miles.

If he had to stay after school for basketball practice, the journey back home would be an adventure. His family didn’t have a car to get him back and forth from school.

“So we used to have to get a ride from Dallas County High School to the Selma Mall,” Dixon said. “From there, we would just hope and pray we would bump into someone that we knew from the area from which we live, and that’s how we could get home.”

The way h

Basketball would be his ticket to get to the next level in life. His high school coach Allen Shelton encouraged Dixon to think about college and was sparked to go on to college.

That eventually led to Dixon signing with the UAB under legendary coach Gene Bartow. He had several successful years playing for the Blazers in the ultra-competitive Conference USA. Dixon even led the Blazers with 25 points in an upset of highly-ranked Cincinnati, which was their first loss of the season.

He even got to face Hall-of-Fame coach Bob Knight when the Blazers hosted Indiana at the Birmingham-Jefferson Civic Center Coliseum.

After returning home, he was able to find work for several years, but once his son was born, it all changed. He had to find something consistent.

That’s when Dixon found out how he could reinvent himself. It was being a teacher.

“I’ve been teaching now for nineteen years,” Dixon said.

He taught and coached at Fayette County High School for three years before heading on to Clay-Chalkville High School where he also taught special education and coached.

Now, Dixon is an exceptional education teacher with Hoover City Schools. He holds an educational special degree in educational leadership from UAB.

His family encouraged him to write the book to be an inspiration to others. He hopes readers will see his story of perseverance.

“I think they would see a guy who faced adversity from childhood up until my days at UAB,” Dixon said. “When I got to UAB, and I talked about it in the book, I was lost. I felt like I was out of place when I went there because academically, I wasn’t prepared.

“They’ll just get to get a chance to see a young man just overcoming obstacles and just not giving up, He was just continuing to fight, continuing to stay positive, to be resilient,”

Dixon will have a book signing at the Selma-Dallas County Public Library on Saturday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.

His book is also available on Amazon.com.