Tony Dixon and Friends brings heart, experience to mental health awareness

There’s a difference between speaking and communicating.

According to a 2025 study by the University of Arizona, the average person speaks 13-thousand words per day — and that does not include words typed on our phones and computers. How much meaning and value do those words contain?

Best friends Eric McCalpine, Kecalf Bailey and Tony Dixon have made checking in on others and life lessons a public display — with their podcast, “Tony Dixon and Friends.” The concept feels simple: close friends should be the ones you feel comfortable opening up to. Although it’s not that easy.

They will admit it hasn’t always been easy opening up to each other.

Growing up, all three friends were popular and standout athletes in west Alabama, eventually going on to play college football at the University of Alabama and Stillman College. Dixon and Bailey were college roommates at Alabama, but say they didn’t learn to communicate until years later.

“We did not even have the openness of conversation then to really know each other,” Tony Dixon said. “Imagine, had we known then how to better communicate? You know, we may not have taken those 40 years, you know, to truly become brothers as we are today.”

Dixon played beyond college. He was one of the top defensive backs in college football and was selected by the Dallas Cowboys in the second round of the 2000 NFL Draft. A life that others consider to be a dream, but he realized his dream was not a pot of gold.

“And the truth of the matter is, be it winning a championship, be it, getting that dream job, be it, getting drafted in the second round to the Dallas Cowboys, once you once you get there, you hadn’t even thought further out, you know. So there’s an emptiness that comes on the backside of success that nobody talks about,” Dixon said.

Dixon began withdrawing from teammates and friends and isolating himself. And his spiral was only beginning. Early in his NFL career, Dixon bought a gun with thoughts about taking his own life….going to concerning lengths and detail.

The main issue was that if he went through with it, people would know that he was battling depression and that stigma was unacceptable even after he was gone.

“That’s not going to work, so I bought a motorcycle,” Dixon said. “And then another motorcycle. The point — if I have a wreck on this motorcycle, people are going to say — why

did Tony get this motorcycle? They’re dangerous. Nobody would ever think that if I died by driving that motorcycle, it was because of what I was going through.”

It took nearly two decades before Dixon shared his story with his two best friends. Those conversations produced the idea for their podcast.

“It’s just life experience, and we just decide to put a camera in front of us and record our conversations, hoping to inspire other people, because as we realize that other people are dealing with the same thing, and our goal is to create a community for conversation, and that’s what we’ve created within ourselves, and we’re inspiring other people to have their own communities, to have some of these conversations as well,” McCalpine said.

These three agree that sharing these stories and being open with each other has made them better husbands, fathers, and friends.

Another important lesson they’ve learned is that you can’t do life without the help of others.

You know, if your car is acting up, you go to a mechanic,” Dixon said. “If you’re feeling sick, you go to the doctor. If you need to learn something, you go to school. Why have we made it to a point where when we have something that we’re suffering with in life, that we can’t talk to someone, and I think that’s where it comes where it comes from. I know there’s a masculinity to this that men, no matter of the color, no matter the age, they all think that if I say anything is wrong with me is a sign of weakness. Not realizing it’s a sign of strength. And that’s what this is all about. You have to open yourself up. You have to be vulnerable. You have to tear down those walls if you want to be stronger.”

“Nobody can do this alone,” Bailey said. “All right. And that’s what we want people to see is and they’ll see our experience. So, we’re going to talk about the times where we tried to do it alone and what that looks like.”

While they aren’t licensed professionals, they believe their experiences make them uniquely qualified, and their words are having an impact.

“It’s so rewarding that know that where we started and then here and people reach out, there was a situation that we talked about, about my son and things that I had not shared with him,” Bailey said. “And we had, a listener or a viewer, Chris, who, at our meet and greet reached out to me. He pulled me to the side and said, man, that episode you open it up to your son, help me to have a conversation with my son, and my kids at the house. And so that was just so rewarding for me to see that we’re making an impact like that.”

Through its stories and shared experiences, the Tony Dixon and Friends podcast pushes its audience to lean on others, check on friends, and walk through life with purpose. The topics vary, but not the intention. The aim of each episode is to provide wisdom, vulnerability, passion, and most importantly — heart.

New episodes air every two weeks and are available on numerous platforms.

Article Written by Kathryn Mentel: https://www.wvua23.com/sports/tony-dixon-and-friends-brings-heart-experience-to-mental-health-awareness/article_2041767c-864e-4ac0-b4ef-d94a542e2bb6.html