Stephen Hillis joined the Lobo family in January of 2025, and he serves as an assistant strength and conditioning coach. He came to UNM after a successful football career at South Dakota and a year at the University of Idaho.
With UNM, Whitehead assists the program in all manners of strength and conditioning, with an emphasis on injury rehabilitation and nutrition and strength technique and explosiveness.
Hillis played football at South Dakota from 2019-23, where his strength and conditioning coach is current UNM strength coach Caleb Heim.
A native of Hartington, Nebraska, Hillis played in 51 games and he recorded 234 tackles 7.5 sacks and 15.0 TFLs. Additionally, he was twice named All-Missouri Valley including first team in 2022. He also was a team captain.