Despite being over six years apart in age, sophomore Brandon Magee and senior Mike Nixon have plenty in common.
First, they often command the middle of the ASU football team’s defense at the same time at linebacker.
Second, they room together on the team’s road trips and when the Sun Devils stay in a hotel the night before home games.
But Nixon and Magee share another common bond: Baseball.
Magee is also currently an outfielder for the ASU baseball team, while Nixon played in the minor leagues following high school before coming to ASU to play football.
“We obviously both have a passion for baseball as well as football,” Nixon said. “It’s just another [way] that we can kind of relate to each other. [It’s nice] not only talk to someone about baseball, but [to] talk to someone who you know is knowledgeable and knows how to play the game.”
Since ASU generally plays night games, especially early in the season, the long days in Magee and Nixon’s hotel room before hitting the gridiron often involve discussing the play on the diamond.
“You can only watch so much football,” Nixon said. “Generally, there’s a Saturday afternoon [baseball] game that we can both watch. It’s nice to have a roommate who actually appreciates baseball, because most of them just think it’s a boring sport and they don’t want to watch it at all.”
Watching those games then generally turns to casual dialogue about the sport, and even includes the occasional friendly trash talking.
“He always talks about how he would strike me out, and [I talk about] how I would hit a home run,” Magee said. “It doesn’t matter—either way I always win the arguments.”
But Nixon said he has come up with the perfect series of pitches that would send Magee back to the dugout empty-handed.
“I would keep it down and away,” Nixon said. “He’s left-handed, so anything down and in he’ll probably hit over the fence at Packard Stadium. I told him I’d try to brush him back early and then finish him off a little bit soft and away and make him hit the ball the other way on me.”
From Dodger blue to maroon and gold
Nixon was a star on the football and baseball field for Sunnyslope High School in Phoenix and initially signed his letter of intent to play both sports at UCLA.
But those plans quickly changed when Nixon heard serious rumblings that he could be highly selected in the hours leading up the 2002 MLB Draft.
“The Los Angeles Dodgers kind of started calling around and seeing not only if I was interested, but what it would take me to bypass my scholarship to UCLA,” Nixon said. “Once that talk started, then I really kind of realized, ‘Hey this might actually be my future.’ It happened extremely fast, in a couple days’ span, and the next thing you know I was up in Montana two weeks after my [high school] graduation playing baseball.”
Nixon was taken by the Dodgers in the third round and played in their farm system through the 2005 season. While with the organization, he experienced the “humbling” realities of minor-league ball, such as long bus rides, staying in motels and making minimal pay compared to other professional athletes.
“[You] go from living at home with your parents to all of a sudden, you’re doing 15-hour bus rides all the time packed with 30 other guys in your situation,” Nixon said. “Each person [is] kind of just trying to make it to the major leagues. You’re trying to show up and deal with the grind every day, and just hopefully you catch a couple breaks along the way.”
There was also a fair share of success for Nixon, as he moved up from Single-A to Triple-A in 2005 and played on the Double-A Jacksonville team that won the Southern League championship. That squad also featured now-familiar major league names like James Loney, Chad Billingsley, Russell Martin and Edwin Jackson.
“These are guys who went through the same struggles you went through and you kind of [grew] up with in the minor leagues,” Nixon said. “To see them succeed and kind of live out the dream is pretty awesome.”
But following the 2005 baseball season, Nixon reevaluated his life and decided that he was ready to step away from the diamond and try something new.
“The only reason you really put up with the grind of the minor leagues is to one day play in the major leagues,” Nixon said. “When I got to the point where I felt that my chances of making it to the major leagues weren’t a good chance, but a long shot, then I realized that I kind of had to renew my priorities.”
Nixon decided to return to school and play football, and the most logical place to do that was at his old stomping grounds and play for his hometown school.
“It’s always kind of been a dream [to] play for ASU,” Nixon said. “The reason I chose to go to UCLA is I really just kind of wanted to get away from home and live on my own for a while, and I was able to do that with the baseball experience. I had a good relationship with [former ASU coach Dirk Koetter] in high school, and being from here, it was just kind of a natural fit.”
Koetter inquired about Nixon playing quarterback — the position he was originally recruited to play — but because Sam Keller and Rudy Carpenter were already on the Sun Devils’ roster, Nixon opted to play at linebacker.
“The reason I was leaving baseball was because I didn’t feel like I was making it and playing as much as I thought maybe I should,” Nixon said.
“By playing defense, and just with my size and speed … I thought that could get me on the field much sooner.”
And during his time in a Sun Devil uniform, Nixon has emerged as the anchor of the defense. His breakout season came one year ago, when he led the Sun Devils with 90 tackles and tied for the Pac-10 lead with five interceptions.
“He makes plays that I just shake my head at, because it doesn’t look like that is where he’s going to be, and he ends up there,” ASU coach Dennis Erickson said. “He has as high a football IQ as I’ve ever been around.”
Dual Threat
Magee nearly took the same road as Nixon after high school.
He was selected in the 29th round of the 2008 MLB Draft by the Tampa Bay Rays, and he said he seriously considered signing that professional contract because he calls baseball his first and last love.
“It came down to the last day,” Magee said. “It was tough, but once I got here and [started playing] football and baseball, I knew made the right choice.”
Magee was part of the trio of players from Centennial High School in Corona, Calif., along with sophomore running back Ryan Bass and sophomore linebacker Shelly Lyons, who signed with ASU in 2008, and Magee said the opportunity to play both football and baseball was “the whole factor” in deciding to come to Tempe.
“God gave me talents to play both, so I’m going to play both until I’ve got to stop,” he said. “And if nobody can stop me, then I’m going to keep playing.”
And in just one year, Magee has experienced playing under the lights of Sun Devil Stadium in the fall and taking in the atmosphere of Omaha in June.
That made the juggling act between the two sports worth it.
“[I] couldn’t have asked for anything more but a bowl game,” Magee said. “We’re going to get to a bowl game, though, this year — a big one.”
Magee was one of a school record 10 true freshmen that saw the field for ASU football team last season, where he recorded 11 tackles in eight games.
He then spent the spring suiting up for Pat Murphy’s squad at Packard Stadium, where did not record a hit in 13 games but scored three runs.
His spot on the squad also earned him a trip to the College World Series, where the Sun Devils finished third.
“I don’t think I’ve experienced anything better than that so far, point blank,” Magee said. “We were just so close, but we’re going to win it this year. So for all the fans out there, get ready, it’s going to be a great season.”
Sharing the field
Now in their second year on the team together, Magee credits Nixon —who is widely regarded as one of the Sun Devils’ biggest leaders — with helping him grow into the Sun Devils’ third-leading tackler (14) in his sophomore season.
“He helped me grow a lot mentally,” Magee said. “He’s a captain of the team, so he teaches me all the time. We watch film before [ASU defensive coordinator Craig] Bray gets in there.
Nixon has also been able to provide Magee with first-hand knowledge of what professional baseball is life, should Magee decide to go that route following his time in Tempe.
“Obviously, we stay in pretty first-class hotels when we travel with ASU, and [we’ve] just kind of [talked] about traveling in the minor leagues and the bus rides and all that,” Nixon said. “I’d say, ‘Hey, don’t get used to what we’re doing here at ASU —chartering planes and staying in quality hotels.’”
But although Nixon may be able to provide the advice about ins and outs of being a professional baseball player, Magee said he currently has superior skills at the plate.
“I’d beat Mike Nixon in a home run contest,” he said. “You can ask him. I’d blow him out.”
Sounds like the words of a competitive college roommate.
Reach the reporter at gina.mizell@asu.edu.
