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, was named the eighth head women’s basketball
coach in Southern Utah’s 31-year history on April 26, 2006.
“I
want to build a quality basketball program that is first class in
everything we do,” Hodson said at his initial press conference. “We
want athletes that are good people, good students and good players.
They have to have all three components or we can’t have them.
“My
goal is to get better every day. We can’t control our opponent, but we
can control us. Players win championships, not me. I have my role, but
it’s really their success. All I ask is that our players respect each
other off the floor and play for each other on the floor.”
In
his first season at the helm in 2006-07, Hodson led the Thunderbirds to
a 9-20 record. His nine victories were second all-time at SUU for a
first-year coach. Under his watch, two players (Anne Westwood and
Aubrey Mackintosh) garnered post-season awards, including second-team
all-conference and all-newcomer team honors.
Hodson’s
approach for solid defense was also apparent with the Thunderbirds
ranking in the top half of the conference in defensive field-goal
percentage. Southern Utah was also in the top-five in the league for
scoring defense.
Hodson joined the Thunderbird
program following a nine-year stint as athletic director at Cedar
City’s Canyon View High School, where he served as head boy’s
basketball coach from 1998-00 before taking over the girl’s program
from 2001-06. As head girl’s coach, he turned a program which had won
15 games in four years 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.
As head coach of the boy’s
program, the Falcons compiled a 22-2 season and the 1999 3A
championship. Members of the team included former SUU men’s players
Rand Janes, Nate Janes and 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
addition, 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, and have five grandchildren.
