It’s interesting, heartbreaking and difficult at times to watch and read Coach Jamie Dixon struggling to start talking about his sister’s passing.

Simultaneously, outside the basketball offices upstairs, their coach was getting choked up talking about his sister, Maggie, who died unexpectedly six weeks ago from a heart ailment.

While everyone around Pitt’s coach has settled back into some sense of normalcy, Jamie Dixon is still trying to deal with the pain of losing his sister, the women’s coach at West Point, at age 28.

“I’ve gotten so many e-mails saying it’s happened to other people at a young age,” Dixon said. “You just wonder why. People have that image of her being carried off the floor [after the Patriot League championship game]. And to have something like that a couple of weeks later … people will always ask why.”

Dixon fought back tears on a few occasions in his first meeting with local reporters since Maggie’s death April 6. Dixon said yesterday that it was time for him to send a message to the people in Western Pennsylvania who have overwhelmed his family with letters of support.

He seems to need to start talking about it to help work through it.

Jamie Dixon said Thursday his family had received “an amazing number” of condolence letters and e-mail messages from western Pennsylvania and neighboring states, as well as from government officials.

“It really has pulled us through some tough times,” he said, tears in his eyes. “I never did know how much it would mean. It means a lot.”

He said talking about Maggie may appear to make him uncomfortable, but he believed it was important for people to know about her and her accomplishments.

“She can be an inspiration to a lot of people, to a lot of girls,” Dixon said.

It can’t be an easy thing to talk about his family and what they are going through so publicly for Coach Dixon. In his time at Pitt, until this season with Maggie Dixon coaching at Army, I had never even heard him mention his family. They have always seemed to be something he has tried to keep away from the media and conversations.