Latin School of Chicago

AT H L E T I C S Dizon Basketball Dynasty When Nikki Dizon graduates this spring, it will be an end of an era in girls basketball at Latin. "In a way basketball also connects me to my sisters and keeps the memory of my father alive." – Nikki Dizon '12 Since the late 1990s (except for a short gap between '05 - '08) a Dizon sister – first Chrissy '02, then Karen '05 and now Nikki '12 – has been making her mark on Latin's courts. Through their dedication to the game, competitiveness and hard work, the Dizons have helped to make Latin girls basketball what it is today. In 2012, after a stellar season of 22 wins and only eight losses, the Romans won both the Independent School League and regional titles, only to suffer a close loss in the IHSA sectional final, which Nikki played with an ankle injury (still managing to pull off 26 points, 6 rebounds and 4 assists). This record continued a more-than-decade-long trend. Since 1999, when Chrissy started playing varsity at Latin, the girls have won the ISL 13 times and regionals 11 times – the most successful stretch in Latin girls basketball history. Nikki, Karen and Chrissy credit their coaches and teammates for success on the court, but readily admit that basketball seems to be in their blood. Chrissy started it in fourth grade when she chose the sport as an after-school activity, and Karen soon followed in her steps. "When we were little, I always had to follow Chrissy," says Karen. "So when she was playing basketball, I was playing basketball. Then there was a huge age gap, so Nikki essentially was born with a basketball in her hands." It is only after they started playing the game that Chrissy and Karen learned that their father had played basketball professionally in the Philippines as a young man. "Between the three of us, we had played a lot of sports, but basketball came most naturally so I stuck with it, and then it became a family sport," says Chrissy, who played varsity all four years of high school, went on to play at the University of Illinois - Chicago, and then professionally in Germany. Currently she is the director of operations for the Loyola University women's basketball team. Karen also played varsity all four years in high school but then chose to focus on school after 12 Latin Magazine

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