MIDVALE — One of Florida’s top football players could soon be playing for East High School.
Johnnie Lang Jr. was granted a hardship waiver by an appeals panel representing the Utah High School Activities Association. The senior is practicing but will not be allowed to play, however, until criminal charges filed against him in Florida are resolved, the panel decided Thursday after a lengthy hearing.
Lang, who was the 2015 All-Southwest Florida MVP, led Manatee High to a 12-2 record by rushing 2,116 yards and 32 touchdowns. He moved to Utah earlier this summer and has been practicing with the Leopards but unable to compete in games.
Lang was charged with two counts of burglary of an unoccupied dwelling in Florida in January. The Manatee School District supervisor of athletics told the UHSAA in an email that Lang was suspended as per a Florida rule that says, “after a hearing with the principal, a student charged with a criminal offense will be suspended from extracurricular or co-curricular activities by the school principal until the charge is adjudicated.”
Utah rules, like Florida’s, prevent a student from transferring from one school to another to avoid punishments like suspensions. But Lang and his attorney said the suspension shouldn’t be enforced in Utah because it was inappropriately imposed in Florida.
Lang said he was never given a hearing with his school’s principal but instead was simply told he was suspended from the football team’s practices by the athletic director.
Lang’s attorney, Michael Ford, said the teen was denied due process because he was never given a hearing. He asked the UHSAA panel not to “rubber stamp a bad decision in Florida.”
Because Lang was never given a hearing and never told what the conditions of earning his way back onto the team would have been, Utah officials have no way of knowing if or when Florida would have allowed Lang to play sports at the high school.
UHSAA attorney Mark Van Wagoner said how to deal with the suspension was the most difficult aspect of Lang’s case. The panel quickly decided the teen qualified for a hardship waiver, but then grappled for some time with how to handle the issue of a suspension that was indefinite.
“The panel decided to deal with it this way — he will remain ineligible according to the terms of his original ineligibility,” Van Wagoner said. “That is, until the matter is adjudicated. … Then the matter of (punishment) will not be determined by Florida, but rather will be determined by East High School.”
Lang is schedule to appear in a Florida court on Sept. 8, and Ford said it’s likely his charges could be resolved at that time. If not, he faces a trial on Sept. 21.
Van Wagoner said the panel was moved to grant the hardship after the teen and his guardians painted a “pretty bleak picture” of his life in Florida.
Lang moved to Utah with a friend and his uncle in hopes of escaping the drugs, violence and extreme poverty that plague the neighborhoods where he lived with his mom and sister.
“It’s been real rough for me,” Lang said. “I’ve seen a lot of my friends go to jail, some have got killed. … It’s just real hard to stay out of trouble.”
Lang moved to Utah with Demitrios Murray and his nephew, Daymon Murray, who is also a senior at East. They came to Utah because Demitrios’ brother Rashaad Cooper married a Utah native and has lived in Utah for several years. He said he’s been begging his brother to move to Utah for several years because of job opportunities and much safer living conditions.
Demitrios Murray said the boys have been exposed to “terrible things” in crime-ridden neighborhoods.
“There is nothing good going on,” Murray said of their hometown. He said both boys have jobs and they have excelled in school.
Lang said he knew he needed to make significant lifestyle changes and moving away from Florida was critical to making better choices. He chose to come with the Murrays because he’s known them all his life and feels close to them. He told the panel that he regretted the trouble he’d gotten into in Florida and was trying to learn from his mistakes.
“I realized that wasn’t who I am as a person,” he said. “I realized what I wanted to do. … It woke me up. … I just really feel like I am developing as a person.”
The same UHSAA panel also granted a hardship waiver for Pelenise "Prince" Taouma. In his case, the issue was one of eligibility years in high school. By rule, students have four consecutive years from the time they enter high school to be eligible to compete in athletics.
An immigrant from Samoa, Taouma entered elementary school at age 8. He started high school (his freshman year) in California in 2010-2011. He moved frequently as his mom struggled to support her seven children alone in California. Midway through his junior year, his mother was attacked at gunpoint, and Taouma told the panel this sent him into a tailspin from which he is just beginning to recover.
He has only played one year of football (as a junior) because of his family's transient history, and also because he spent 20 months in a Youth Corrections Facility. He was recently placed in a proctor home in the Mountain View boundaries by juvenile justice officials. Taouma, his proctor parents and Mountain View principal Taran Chun appealed to the panel to allow the senior to participate in athletics this year.
Taouma was emotional as he asked the panel to give him this final year of athletic eligibility.
"I'd really love to have this opportunity," he said. "I'm not here to say I deserve this more than anybody else. … Being in JJS custody, I understand there is more to life than what I've been through. The guys on the team have definitely showed me there is a place where I belong, where I can be accepted."
In fact, his teammates, the captains of Mountain View's football team, read a statement asking the panel to allow Toauma to play.
"Prince's personality makes everyone comfortable," Kent Free read. "We have already seen a positive effect in the short period of time that he has been a part of the team."
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