Michael Lewis, the financial journalist and author of Moneyball, The Big Short, The Fifth Risk, and the current bestseller The Premonition, has confirmed that his 19-year-old daughter was killed with her boyfriend in a head-on car crash this week.
Dixie Lewis, 19, and Ross Schultz, 20, were both pronounced dead at the scene of the Tuesday afternoon collision near Truckee, California. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Schultz was driving the car when it crossed lanes and collided with a Freightliner semi-truck. The 45-year-old truck driver is said to have had minor injuries.
In a devastating statement, Michael Lewis told news site Berkleyside: “We loved her so much and are in a kind of pain none of us has experienced... She loved Ross, with whom she died. She loved to live and our hearts are so broken they can’t find the words to describe the feeling. Her mother, Tabitha, and I, and her brother Walker and sister Quinn are going to find ways for her memory to live in her absence.”
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The teen’s mother, Tabitha Soren, is a former MTV political correspondent. She told the San Francisco Chronicle in a statement: “Dixie was a fighter—and not just for herself but for everyone... She had a fire in her that people could feel when she walked in the room. She used her intensity to bring up everyone around her and she tried so hard at everything she did.”
Schultz’s aunt, Locke Schultz Jaeger, said the couple was in Tahoe on vacation. They got together when they met at Berkeley High School. “Ross loved his friends and he loved his family and, boy, did he love Dixie, who died with him.” she said. “They were funny, they were charming, and they were both very smart. They were kind and they had friendships and relationships that were the deepest and most incredible bond.”
California Highway Patrol Officer Jacob Williams said it’s not yet clear why the car carrying Schultz and Lewis veered into oncoming traffic. Authorities don’t believe alcohol or drugs were involved, and the CHP is looking for more witnesses to help them piece together why the collision happened.
In 2009, Lewis published Home Game: An Accidental Guide to Fatherhood, about raising his three kids. He also wrote Playing to Win about how he got involved in Dixie’s softball league and the family’s experience with travel sports teams.
