Stephan Lewis was Hall of Fame UNH football player. Here's what he's doing 21 years later

EXETER — After a few stints in training camps with a handful of NFL teams and a stint in both the Canadian Football League and Arena Football League, former University of New Hampshire standout running back Stephan Lewis had a promising workout with New York Jets before the start of the 2007 season.

It was Lewis' final attempt to keep his dreams of playing in the NFL alive.

Instead of making the Jets roster, New York head coach Herm Edwards called Lewis into his office and gave him an opportunity to go to NFL Europe for that season. However, the league, after a 12-year run, folded shortly thereafter, and Lewis contemplated trying to return to the Canadian Football League. He "ultimately decided to move on," ending his career.

"One of the hardest decisions to make, but ended up working out perfectly because shortly after I met my wife (Brianne)," Lewis said.

Lewis is now a longtime physical education teacher and coach in the Exeter area. A member of the UNH Athletics Hall of Fame, Lewis sat down to share the story of a journey that brought him to the Seacoast New Hampshire area for college and back again for his career and family.

From UNH to various professional football leagues

After a storied four-year career (1999-2002) at UNH, Lewis graduated and agreed to a contract with the Dallas Cowboys as an undrafted free agent in the summer of 2003. However, Lewis tore his hamstring and missed the season.

After his release by the Cowboys, Lewis later had brief stints in the Canadian Football League (Montreal), and Arena Football League before going to training camp with the Miami Dolphins in 2005.

Before the summer training camp with the Dolphins, Lewis played for the Colorado Crush and Rio Grand Valley Dorados of the Arena League that spring. After his release from the Dolphins, Lewis bounced from camp to camp, including stints with the Oakland Raiders and Indianapolis Colts, but never could crack a roster. His final attempt at the NFL was the workout with the Jets prior to the 2007 season.

Lewis returns to New Hampshire, and gets into teaching, coaching

When Lewis retired from football, he came back to New Hampshire and talked to his college head coach Sean McDonnell about a potential coaching position on the Wildcat staff. McDonnell was "more than happy" to have Lewis on board, but with limited earnings and the possibility of having to "sleep on the couch some nights," Lewis respectfully said thanks, but no thanks.

But Lewis always knew he wanted to coach at some level.

"I think coaching was something I always wanted to do," said Lewis, sitting at a picnic table near the football field at Phillips Exeter Academy, where he is about to begin his third season on the Big Red coaching staff. "I think going back to even in high school and college, I was always trying to coach my teammates up and help them. It was one of those things where, to me, football and terminology and things like that came easy. To help other people, I felt like it was something that I could do, because it was easy for me to explain and kind of get them to understand."

Lewis earned his teaching certificate, and began his new career teaching physical education at Seacoast Learning Collaborative in Exeter. He was there until 2008, when he got a job as a physical education teacher and athletic director at Cooperative Middle School in Stratham. He still holds those jobs today, but almost left in 2015 to reunite with a former UNH coach in the NFL.

Lewis does coaching internship with Philadelphia Eagles

In the summer of 2015, Lewis did a coaching internship with the Philadelphia Eagles under former UNH coach and Eagles' head coach Chip Kelly. Kelly offered Lewis a spot on his Eagles' coaching staff, but Lewis, after careful deliberation with his wife, declined.

"I wouldn’t have been able to bring my family and (the pay) was less than what I was getting at the school," Lewis said. "I thought about it hard."

The 2015 season was Kelly's final season in Philadelphia. He served as head coach of the San Francisco 49ers in 2016, and in 2018 Kelly was named the head coach at UCLA, where he has remained since.

Lewis started his coaching career at Phillips Exeter Academy

Panos Voulgaris was hired as head football coach at Phillips Exeter Academy in the spring of 2021, and called Lewis about joining his staff.

"I didn't know who (Voulgaris) was," Lewis said. "He called me out of the blue. I don't even know how he got my number. He said, 'I called around and asked if there was any coach in the area. I had one position I could hire, and everyone kept bringing up your name.'"

Phillips Exeter went 1-7 in 2019, and there was no season in 2020. In 2021, Voulgaris' first year, the Big Red went 2-6. Both wins came in the final three weeks of the season, including a 37-6 win over rival Andover, and things began to look up with the PEA football program.

The success continued last year as PEA went 7-1, including another season-ending win over Andover.

"(Voulgaris) wanted to turn the program around, and I think we've done that," said Lewis, who works with wide receivers and defensive backs, along with his offensive coordinator duties.

Lewis said the turnaround at PEA started by bringing in guys who fit the system, and players who understood the team's goals came first. He likes seeing players reap the benefits from what they learn, and seeing their success, both off and on the field.

"Football is one of those sports where you're hit with adversity quite a bit and you have to respond. You can either fold or respond," Lewis said. "In some ways, I think football kind of prepares you for life. Football also builds a brotherhood and friendship that I think lasts forever."

When he's not coaching or staying active and fit, Lewis is big on family. Lewis and Brianne live in Nottingham with their three children - Gavyn, Amari, and Natalia.

"I like to golf, play hoop and family, family is big," he said. "I like to do things with the family. We vacation quite a bit."

Blessing in disguise for Lewis landing in Durham

Lewis remembers when former former UNH head football coach Bill Bowes and Kelly, then a UNH assistant, took a recruiting trip to Coatesville High School in Pennsylvania to watch Lewis play basketball.

"It's funny and I'll never forget this," Lewis said. "It was tip-off, and we had this play off the tip. It was tipped to one guy, then passed to me. I went up for a dunk, and I missed it. It was like 10 seconds into the game and I saw Chip and Coach Bowes get up and they leave. I'm like, 'Woah.' I was scared."

Turns out, Bowes, who stepped down as UNH head coach after the 1998 season, saw everything he needed.

""Coach Bowes tapped (Kelly) and said 'I've seen enough,'" Lewis recalled. "After that, he offered me the scholarship. I think that initial play off the jump, Coach Bowes was like 'I think I've seen enough of (Lewis') athletic ability, let's offer him a scholarship.'"

UNH had some competition in recruiting Lewis, who had a verbal commitment to play at North Carolina State University. Except that didn't go as planned.

"Some stuff happened with my SAT scores," Lewis said. "On National Signing Day, N.C State called me up and said they needed the scores before they could send over the letter of intent," Lewis said. "I didn't have the scores so my mother put a rush on them. National Signing Day was February 1st, and I got the test scores back on February 6th."

Lewis said Kelly, who was about to begin his first season as offensive coordinator at UNH, offered him a scholarship "no matter what" the SAT scores were.

"It kind of worked out," said Lewis, who arrived in Durham in 1999.

Running wild as a Wildcat

Years before Lewis was inducted into the UNH Hall of Fame in 2012, the 5-foot-8 running back was a freshman and was on the scout team trying to prove he deserved to be getting substantial reps on game days.

Lewis was working and working, and he recalled one specific play during the end of training camp, with the 1999 season creeping up around the corner.

"I ran a draw and I think I juked the entire first-team defense, and Coach (McDonnell) said 'just keep running'," Lewis said. "I started getting first-team reps and started sharing reps with Dan Curran."

Curran, a senior, was the starter during Lewis' freshman year, but McDonnell and the staff wanted to make sure Lewis got touches and decided against redshirting him and allowed him to play as a true freshman. A redshirt freshman forgoes their freshman season and won't see any game action, and officially starts their first athletic season the following year.

Lewis proved he was ready right away, seeing action in every game, and racked up 325 total yards; 184 rushing and 141 receiving.

"I played running back, and then I played receiver in the slot," Lewis said. "They were just moving me around a lot trying to get me on the field and get me the ball."

The next season, Lewis ran wild, or as he said, "(my career) kind of took off."

"I kind of knew where I stood going into that offseason, so we just worked and built on it," he said. "I came in as a sophomore, and knew I had the starting job, but I wasn't going to get complacent."

By the time Lewis finished his career, he was third in rushing yards (3,769) in program history.

Lewis was named a Division I-AA first-team All-American in his senior season, What may be more impressive was an award he didn't quite win. Lewis was selected as one of the 16 finalists for the Walter Payton Award, given to top offensive player in I-AA football, which is now known as the Division I Football Championship Subdivision.

"That was big, it's like the Heisman of Division I-AA," Lewis said. "That was an honor. I personally think if we as a team had a better record, I think I would have probably won it. (Team record) has a lot to do with votes and things like that."

Tony Romo, a quarterback at Eastern Illinois, won the award that year. The two were in training camp with the Cowboys that summer. Former UNH running back Jerry Azumah won the award in 1998, and in 2006, quarterback Ricky Santos, who replaced McDonnell as the UNH head coach, won the award.

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: UNH football Stephan Lewis now coaching at Phillips Exeter Academy