James Dickey

James Lafayette Dickey (February 2, 1923 – January 19, 1997) was an American poet and novelist. He was appointed the eighteenth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1966. He also received the Order of the South award.

Biography

Early years

James Dickey was born to lawyer Eugene Dickey and Maibelle Swift in Atlanta, Georgia, where he attended North Fulton High School in Atlanta's Buckhead neighborhood. In 1942 he enrolled at Clemson Agricultural College of South Carolina and played on the football team as a tailback. After one semester, he left school to enlist in the Army Air Corps. Dickey served with the U.S. Army Air Forces as a radar operator in a night fighter squadron during the Second World War, and in the U.S. Air Force during the Korean War. Between the wars, he attended Vanderbilt University, graduating with degrees in English and philosophy, as well as minoring in astronomy. He also taught at the University of Florida.

Career

From 1950 to 1954, Dickey taught at Rice University (then Rice Institute) in Houston. While teaching freshman composition at Rice, Dickey returned for a two-year air force stint in Korea, then went back to teaching. He then worked for several years in advertising, most notably writing copy and helping direct creative work on the Coca-Cola and Lay's Potato Chips campaign. He once said he embarked on his advertising career in order to "make some bucks." Dickey also said "I was selling my soul to the devil all day... and trying to buy it back at night." He was ultimately fired for shirking his work responsibilities. His discontent with his work and his firing are portrayed in his novel Deliverance where the narrator who runs a design agency tells the story of an employee who could only think of producing great art and scorned all those around him in the agency.

James Dickey (basketball)

James Allen Dickey (born (1954-04-02)April 2, 1954) is an American college basketball coach who is currently an assistant coach at Oklahoma State University. He previously served as the head men's coach at Texas Tech University from 1991 to 2001, where he led the Red Raiders to the NCAA Tournament in 1993 and again in 1996, and at the University of Houston from 2010 to 2014.

Biography

Early years

Dickey attended Valley Springs High School, where he played basketball from 1970 to 1972. He later played for Central Arkansas from 1972 to 1976.

Coaching career

Dickey's best team was the Texas Tech's 1996 unit, which finished 30–2, including an undefeated record in the final season of Southwest Conference play. They won the SWC conference tournament and advanced all the way to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament.

The Raiders moved to the Big 12 for the 1996–97 season, and appeared to pick up right where they left off with a solid 19–9 season. It was discovered during the inaugural Big 12 basketball tournament, however, that two players had played the entire season while academically ineligible. Hours after the team's first-round game, Texas Tech announced that it was withdrawing from postseason consideration and forfeiting its entire conference schedule. The Raiders had lost that game, and would have had to forfeit it if they had won.

James Dickey (disambiguation)

James Dickey may refer to: