Caldwell promotes Carlos Dixon as men’s basketball coach after McIver resigns

Caldwell Community College & Technical Institute put its men’s basketball program in the middle of a broader athletic transition on July 13, promoting Carlos Dixon after Jamison McIver resigned following a 14-season run that produced a 163-70 record, multiple NJCAA Region 10 titles and a national-tournament appearance.

For a program that has thrived on continuity, the move mattered immediately. McIver spent the last eight seasons as head coach and built one of the steadiest résumés in the region, but Caldwell did not reach outside the building to replace him. Dixon, who had been the Cobras’ assistant and associate head coach since 2019, took over with a background that includes assistant stops at Appalachian State and Queens, a playing career at Virginia Tech from 2000-05 and 11 years as a professional overseas in seven countries.

That experience gives Caldwell a coach who understands both sides of junior-college basketball: how to develop players quickly and how to keep relationships intact when roster turnover is constant. The school said Dixon’s reputation has centered on building relationships and improving players, and that profile fits a program that cannot afford a reset if it wants to keep its pipeline of Region 10 talent and transfers moving in the right direction.

The basketball change was part of a larger reshuffling in CCC&TI athletics. Jeff Link retired as athletic director the same day, and softball coach Scott Triplett was elevated into the AD role after guiding Caldwell’s softball team to the NJCAA Division III national championship game in May, where the Cobras finished runner-up to North Dakota State College of Science after a 15-3 loss. Caldwell’s baseball team also reached a national stage, winning the Region 10 Division III and Mid-Atlantic District titles and advancing to the NJCAA Division III World Series for just the second time in program history.

The school has also spent the spring and summer pointing to its academic side. CCC&TI student-athletes posted a department-best 3.273 GPA in 2025-26, and 31 current or former athletes earned degrees at commencement on May 8. Men’s basketball finished with a 2.969 team GPA, a number that sits below the department average but still fits within a campus-wide emphasis on keeping performance and academics aligned.

That is the backdrop for Dixon’s promotion. Caldwell did not just choose a new men’s basketball coach. It chose whether to treat one of its most stable programs as a bridge to the future or as a place to start over.