ST. GEORGE — Dixie State is turning to an old rival to help guide its men's basketball program into a new era.
Jon Judkins was named Friday as the head coach of the Rebels. Judkins, who coached for 11 years at rival Snow College, will take over the reins of Dixie State's hoops program as the school makes its way into the NCAA Division II level.
"Dixie's going to have a lot of challenges ahead doing the Division II thing, and I'm excited to hit that head on," Judkins said. "I'm a little nervous, but I think it will be a lot of fun."
The veteran coach has compiled a 284-128 record over 11-plus years at Snow College. Earlier this month, the Dixie State post came open when Jeff Kidder accepted the head coaching job at Indian Hills (Iowa) Community College.
"To be a good coach, you have to be a good teacher and Jon's a very good teacher," Dixie State athletic director Dexter Irvin said. "For him to have young people for five years instead of just two . . . well, I think he'll be a better four-year coach than a two-year coach. And he was an excellent two-year coach."
Judkins, whose brother Jeff is the head women's basketball coach at BYU, has had a successful reign at Snow College. In the past eight seasons, the Badgers have won the league once and finished in the top three seven times.
In 2002, the year Dixie State won the NJCAA National Championship, Judkins' Badgers lost to Dixie State by one point in the Region 18 championship game.
Judkins' teams are known for their crowd-pleasing, up-tempo style and sharp-shooting guards. Last season, the Badgers averaged 83 points a game and led the conference in field goal percentage (48.9) and were second in 3-pointer percentage (38.7).
"Telling my team last night was pretty tough, but a lot of those guys want to come down (to Dixie) to play," Judkins said. "I need to get down there and see who wants to come back and what we have available. We're recruiting pretty hard. We've got to get a team together first thing."
Judkins played at Dixie State in the 1980s, and his wife attended Dixie.
"I've always wanted to coach there," he said. "It's always been a very important place for me. It's very hard to leave Snow. We've finally got our program up to where I think it needs to be. But it's going to be great at Dixie."
As a Rebel, Judkins will face some unique challenges.
"The kids I have recruited at Snow have been mostly the academic kind of kids. We can still win with Utah kids, but I also want to go out and get some real good athletes," he said. "At Snow, I didn't have the scholarship money to go out and get that big-time athlete. The big thing is to get kids who work together and play hard."
Dixie State will play at least one more season at the junior-college level. Irvin said the Rebels hope to be NCAA Division II by the 2006-07 school year.
"I'm very excited about that," Judkins said. "It's going to be very good. I'm going to learn a lot. I think the facilities, the location means we're going to be able to get a lot of players (signed) at Dixie."
Judkins was the Rebels' first choice, with his recruiting skills a primary reason.
"Ideally, we'd like to get a few more Utah guys and combine that with some of the high-caliber athletes like we've had in the past," Irvin said. "I think Jon can provide the best of both worlds for us."