He drove while drunk. Now his one-year jail sentence is interrupted only so he can warn other young people to avoid his mistakes.
By DONNA WINCHESTER
Published May 13, 2004
[Times photos: Kinfay Moroti]
John Stang told the students, "Drinking and driving can affect not only your life, but others'. Don't do it. It's not worth it."
A deputy helps Pinellas County inmate John Stang, 20, out of a sheriff's van Wednesday so he can talk to students at Clearwater High School. Stang drove drunk last year, badly injuring a friend and leading to a conviction and a year in jail.
CLEARWATER - The idle buzz of the first-period class went stone silent the moment John Stang shuffled through the side door.
Dressed in prison orange, he struggled to walk normally, his stride shortened by iron cuffs clamped to his ankles. They ached from the chafing. His hands were chained to a strap at his waist.
There he stood at the lectern, a 20-year-old college student, a star pitcher, a felon.
He was there to tell Clearwater High students how he had hurt his best friend in a crash, how drunk driving had put him behind bars, how lives had changed forever.
Instead of finishing his junior year at Florida State University, he's three months into a one-year jail sentence for driving under the influence with serious bodily injury.
He will turn 21 behind bars.
His parents sat in the back of the classroom. Minutes earlier, they had embraced their son outside the principal's office. It was only the second time they had been able to hug since he went to jail in February.
"I just want to talk to you about the consequences of drinking and driving," he began. "The shackles and the orange suit are not a big deal."
What matters more, he went on, are the lives that were shattered because of a stupid decision he made last August to drive drunk.
He told them how a day of celebration - his buddy's 21st birthday - had included five or six beers and several mixed drinks, and how that evening he and three friends had decided to go to a local bar. Using fake IDs, they drank more. Then, about 2 a.m., they piled into a supercharged Mercedes.
Stang was at the wheel as the car barreled down Brightwaters Boulevard in St. Petersburg's upscale Snell Isle neighborhood.
"I was coming around the corner too fast, and I lost control of the car," he said. "I don't remember hitting the pole. I woke up when the airbag exploded."
As if it had just happened yesterday, Stang told the students how he turned and saw his friend Eiseley Tauginas unconscious in the back seat, her face covered with blood. He talked about how he had helped pull her out of the car, praying she was still alive.
Part of the guilt he carries today, he said, is that he seriously injured a beautiful young woman with a promising modeling career. He also hurt their relationship. A pending civil suit prohibits him from communicating with her.
"There are a lot of other things," he went on. "Eleven state universities won't accept me. It might be difficult to get a job in the future."
He paused before making his next point.
"Drinking and driving can affect not only your life, but others'," he said. "Don't do it. It's not worth it."
A girl in the back of the room raised her hand.
"Do you think you'll ever drink again?" Heather Davis asked.
"No," Stang answered immediately, emphatically.
But his message was not about drinking. It was about not drinking and driving.
"I could stand up here all day and say, "Don't drink, don't drink,"' he said during a break between presentations. "It would be no use because they're going to do it."
Stang began his talk to a second group of students by telling them he was in their seats not long ago.
A 2001 St. Petersburg High graduate, he was a good student who never got in trouble. His baseball skills earned him a full athletic scholarship to Hillsborough Community College, where he completed an associate's degree in business administration last spring.
None of that mattered, any more than the fact that he came from a loving home with concerned parents, he told the students.
"You think you're invincible," he said. "You think nothing will happen to you."
When it came time for questions, several students wanted to know about what jail is like and whether he is ever afraid.
He ran down the basics: Breakfast is at 3:30 a.m., lunch is at 10 and dinner is at 4 p.m. There are no private showers or bathrooms. Lockdown is for an hour each day. There are only three TV channels. Lights are out at 11 p.m.
"It's a big pod. There are about 20 people," he said. "They're not nice people."
But things are better than they were when he was still in maximum security and witnessed a fight within the first 15 minutes he was there, he added.
A judge was not willing to cut his sentence to let him talk to students, but did give him four hours each week away from jail, including transit time, to do so. He is allowed to leave only under guard and in shackles.
Principal Nick Grasso had a few questions for Stang. He asked him about peer pressure and when he started drinking. Stang explained that peer pressure played a big part in his picking up his first drink in 10th or 11th grade. But he took responsibility for the night of the accident.
"I had drunk the least," he said.
Later, after Stang had been locked back into the green-and-white sheriff's van and was on his way back to the Pinellas County Jail, Davis, the student, reflected on his talk.
"I felt a lot of sympathy for him," the 16-year-old said. "I think it would be one of the worst things ever if I was to go to jail."
But as powerful as Stang's story was, she doubts it will be a deterrent for all kids.
"For some it will be - for the smart ones," she said. "But for others, they'll have to learn the hard way. They'll have to do what he did."
As high school students prepare for graduation and summer, Stang's father hopes his son's message will matter.
"When they're out drinking on a Friday night or a Saturday night and they're thinking about taking their keys out of their purse or out of their pocket," Rick Stang said, "maybe they'll think about John."
