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CEDAR CITY, Utah -- Steve Hodson, a three-time Utah high school coach of the year who has won four state 3A titles, and a Southern Utah University Coaching Hall of Fame inductee, has been named the eighth head women's basketball coach in Southern Utah's 31-year history, SUU Athletic Director Ken Beazer announced Wednesday. Hodson replaces Joe Hillock, who was relieved of his duties at the end of the 2005-06 season after 10 years on the Thunderbird bench.
"I am excited for this excellent opportunity to go back to and coach at my alma mater," Hodson said. "This will be an exciting challenge to be a part of the great athletic department here at Southern Utah and hopefully be an important cog in the future of this program.
"We have to hit the ground running and sign some players, while at the same time get to know the players I do have and have them get to know me," Hodson continued. "We have to take big steps real fast to get this program moving in the right direction."
"We are obviously excited to add someone of Steve Hodson's caliber to our staff," Beazer said. "His coaching accomplishments are well documented and he brings an immediate jolt of prestige to our women's basketball program. He carries a tangible sense of optimism wherever he goes and is the type of person the student athletes, campus and community can, and will, rally around."
Hodson joins the Thunderbird program following a five-year stint as athletic director and head girl's basketball coach at Cedar City's Canyon View High School. At CVHS he turned a program which had won 15 games in the four years prior into a state championship team with a 24-1 record in 2006, earning him 3A coach of the year accolades. He led the Falcons to three-consecutive region titles from 2004-06, and posted a 90-26 overall mark, including a 64-9 record in his final three seasons on the Falcon bench.
Prior to that, Hodson served as CVHS boy's head basketball coach from 1998-2000, guiding the Falcons to a 22-2 season and the 1999 3A championship with former SUU men's players Rand Janes and Nate Janes and current T-Bird guard Steve Barnes. Hodson also earned state coach of the year honors following that championship season.
In addition, Hodson mentored the Cedar HS boy's team from 1983-87, and again from 1991-97, winning back-to-back 3A titles in 1994-95. In between his two tenures at CHS, he served as assistant men's basketball coach at SUU under former T-Bird head coach Neil Roberts from 1987-91.
Hodson was inducted into the SUU coaching Hall of Fame in 2005 and was the 2006 recipient of the SUU Alumni Carmen Rose Hepworth Award. In addtion, he received the 2002 Utah High School Men's Basketball Coaches Association Distinguished Coaches Award and the 1998 UHSAA Distinguished Service 3A Coach of the Year award. Hodson is also the only Utah high school coach to win state boy's and girl's titles with three different programs and is one of three Utah prep mentors to have won both boy's and girl's state basketball titles.
Hodson began coaching at the prep level as an assistant at CHS in 1977 before moving on to Salt Lake City's Granite HS in 1978. He then returned to Cedar City the following year to serve as junior varsity head coach at SUU (1979-80) and as an assistant at Dixie College (1980-83) prior to his first head coaching stint at CHS.
Hodson earned his bachelor's degree in Physical Education from Southern Utah in 1978. He was also a two-year letterwinner on Thunderbird men's basketball team and helped lead SUU to its only NAIA national tournament appearance in 1977. He and his wife, Suzy, are the parents of three daughters, Annie, Summer and Kristy.
