Dixie State University will host its sixth annual convocation on Sept. 15, and there has been a change to the convocation this year.
Instead of Dave Rose, head basketball coach at BYU, coming to speak, Dixie State students will be able to listen to former DSU baseball coach Mike Littlewood.
Rose played and coached basketball at DSU. He played for the former Rebels for the 1976 to 1977 and the 1979 to 1980 seasons. He then moved on to play basketball at the University of Houston from 1980 to 1983.
After four years of assistant coaching at two Utah high schools, Rose was hired as an assistant at Dixie State for three years before becoming the head coach in 1990. He coached at Dixie State for seven years, and BYU decided to hire him as an assistant in 1997. Rose then was hired as the head basketball coach for the Cougars from 2005 to the present day.
Rose will not be able to come to the convocation this weekend due to surgery to remove cancerous spots on Sept. 9. Rose fought off pancreatic cancer in 2009. Doctors expect him to make a full recovery before the college basketball season starts.
Littlewood coached at DSU for 16 years before moving to Brigham Young University to become its new baseball coach. He compiled the most wins in school history with a 70.2 win percentage. While Littlewood was the coach at DSU, the baseball team made the National Junior College World Series four times. The team won the championship in 2004 and was runner-up in 2001.
Littlewood played baseball at BYU from 1985 to 1988 where he was named to the All-Western Athletic Conference First Team as a senior. Upon graduation, Littlewood was drafted by the Milwaukee Brewers where he spent only one season.
Littlewood has also officiated NCAA basketball. He has refereed five times during the NCAA “March Madness” Tournament.
For more information on these two men, visit www.byucougars.com.
