About Siran Stacy

In November of 2007, Stacy’s life changed forever when his family’s van was struck by a drunk driver only one mile from their home. Stacy, his wife Ellen (36), his son Bronson (10), his daughters Lequisa (18), Sydney (9), Shelly (4), and Ellie Ann-Marie (2), were all in the vehicle at the time of the crash. Tragically, only Stacy and Shelly survived.
In 2008, Stacy was asked to speak about his experience at a small church in Alabama, and this prompted him to begin his own ministry. In the following year, Stacy was ordained as a minister of the Gospel at Destiny Worship Center in Destin, FL. Now, as one of the country’s leading motivational speakers, Stacy uses his story to make a difference in the lives of others. Stacy has drawn on his international career as a professional football player and his profound faith to become one of the premier inspirational speakers in a variety of settings. Stacy has spoken to churches, corporate groups, schools, prisons, military branches, and many other groups.

Where The Football Dream Started For Siran Stacy

“Saturday morning I saw a man on a goal post and I didn’t know him. Then I saw a bunch of red jerseys running out and I said at an early age, “I’m going to play for that man one day.” Eight years old! And at age twenty I went out on Legion Field in Birmingham, Alabama with number twenty-seven on my Crimson jersey and all these thousands of people were going crazy and I had tears in my eyes because I was staring at that goal post. We have moments! We have moments in our lives and that was a moment for me. It took twelve years to happen. I tell people this, “If it could happen for a small town country boy like me, it could happen for you.”

The Game That Made it Real For Siran Stacy

“I didn’t get into that game until the second quarter. I didn’t start; I wasn’t a starter and I got in and was so energized and was so pumped up. You know what? I really feel I did not become a Crimson Tider until the third Saturday in October. That third Saturday in October is when Alabama plays Tennessee.

But that game was like a statement game that forever imprinted me in the Alabama Football History. Once again, I come in the second quarter and end up with four touchdowns and three hundred and eighteen all purpose yards, which was an Alabama record that still stands. I remember Walter Lewis and we were on our way back to Tuscaloosa. That’s when we would play half of our games in Birmingham and half in T-Town and I remember him telling me on the greyhound bus going back to Tuscaloosa that evening, he said, “Siran, they will never forget you.”  That was just another moment.”

What it Was Like to Play Pro Football

“It was never my goal to play in the National Football League. It was always to play at Alabama. I became that years second team, All American. I was drafted by the Eagles and I was their first pick in the second round. It was a lot of pressure; it was a lot of pomp; I was going into this new world in the Northeast, which is so different than (unfinished thought).
I was exposed to a number of things. There was a great deal of immaturity, on my part, at that time of my life, even though I was surrounded by great men. In fact, my first year with the Eagles, I lived with Randall Cunningham. He took me under his wings and every Wednesday night we were at Bible Study at the great Reggie Whites. We were at his home.

When I moved to Scotland, it was amazing. I lived in Europe for practically five years, five seasons. I lived in Scotland and here’s another exposure. We would play Frankfort, Germany; we would play Amsterdam; we would play Barcelona,Spain. We would fly to all of these different places. I really thank God for my time in Europe because I got to witness and see so much. It’s a big world out here.”

How Siran Stacy Switched Careers

“Once I got out of football I had so many high expectations of myself from the National Football League. People were saying, “I was going to be an All Pro Running Back.” and they were saying that, “I had the Marcus Allen type of running style,” and so when I did not live up to those expectations, I just kind of wanted to go into my cave. Being back in Alabama, everybody’s going to say, “Well what is Siran Stacy doing now?” and “Man, he could have been such a great player.” So I wanted to get away from that. I wanted to do something behind the scenes, just to be able to have a regular job. Billy Taylor offered me a job and I said, “I can do this. I can learn.” I went to school and got educated in being a Mortgage Lender.”

Where Faith Came Into The Equation For Siran Stacy

“Well I believed all along. I grew up in church and it was a mandate that you go to church every Sunday. We would walk to church every Sunday and it was just a part of life. I always believed in God at a young age. God touched me and I was in church and I heard one of those sermons, “Go to hell, or you can go to heaven.”

I sat right there in that seat and I said, “I want to go to heaven; I believe in Jesus.” I believe God touched me right there in that seat, in that church, at an early age. Then, we got baptized and so I grew up with God. But I can be honest and say when I went off to college, I didn’t live by Godly principles. So I started diving into alcohol and sex and women, and when I got to Alabama it increased.”

How Can Young Men Avoid Pitfalls?

“We have to be transparent; we have to be honest; we can’t be on the stage and they’re way out there in the audience. We have to bring them to us; we have to connect and tell them the truth. Tell them the truth like just what I’m saying now on this radio station. The Scripture says, there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. That’s who I was, but that’s not who I am now, but I can use who I was to be able to bless someone else.

I can use the man that I was as a teenager, the choices, that’s what I tell them. I tell them it’s the choices that you’re making right now that’s setting up so much in your life. It‘s like Robert Frost, the two roads that diverge in a yellow wood, and sorry I cannot travel them both. You know what, he ends up by saying,  I’m going to be saying this with a sigh from ages and ages hence: Two roads diverge in a yellow wood and I–I took the one less traveled by, has made all the difference.

So at this time in our life, we’ve got to make this choice that’s going to make all the difference. We need people like yourself and myself, being able to be transparent with our young people, and connect with them because it’s a struggle. It’s a struggle when most of us grow up, at least I did. I heard, “This is what you don’t do.” But what I saw was different and as men we have to, not only say it, but we have to live it. Teenagers need to see leaders that are not just saying it, but they are living it. I believe to answer your question that’s how you reach them.”

November 19th 2007

“I got about a mile away from my home and witnesses say this: I got to the intersection at eighty-four and highway one twenty three and the light turned green and I went through and an individual who I didn’t know; an individual who was drunk; an individual who I feel was very angry. He goes over twelve to fourteen miles just recklessly hitting other cars in a four lane highway. In fact, I heard the 911 phone calls in my home in Newton, the people that he was hitting, they were saying, “Please come help us, we’re in a ditch. We’ve been hit by a man in a truck.” So he kept going. He kept on going and what the State Trooper tells me is that, “At the turn, when he saw my vehicle going through the red light, he actually went straight into it.”

He hit us. That night he murdered my wife, who was thirty-six, and my eighteen year old daughter, and Bronson my son who was ten years old, my nine year old daughter, little Sydney, and my two year old baby, little Ellie Ann- Marie named after the two grandmothers. I went into a coma. Shelly was in a coma. It took the Paramedics about fifteen minutes to get inside the vehicle and when they were pulling people out many of them could not take what they were seeing. I was in a coma, Pastor, and I never got a chance to say goodby to any of my family members that night. I can’t remember anything about it.

It took a year later when people were coming and telling me that they were inside the hospital holding my hand. One of them was Gene Stallings, who was my college coach, he was saying to me, “Siran, don’t you dare die.” I have five life sustaining injuries: a cracked skull, broken ribs, and a punctured lung, and my liver was bleeding. No one should have survived the tragedy. Shelly, who was four and a half at the time, they flew her to the Children’s Hospital in Birmingham, Alabama.

From what the pilots were saying, Shelly actually flatlined on that flight. When they found out about this tragedy and they heard about it, that night they started praying. They said, “God, do something.” They knew I played football at Alabama and I played in the National Football League so it was on ESPN and CNN. It went nationally so whoever heard it that knew me, if they knew God, they started praying and so because of those prayers I believe that’s why Shelly is eleven years old now.”

How Siran Stacy Faced The Reality of Loss

“I was in a coma and they released me because they had to put the bodies in the ground. On the 29th, I saw Lequisa and Sydney in Hartford. It was perplexing and I can’t even describe it. It took me awhile to get the word to describe what I saw November 29th. After we buried Lequisa and Sydney in Hartford, my brother Bruce said, “We have to go to Geneva now.”

There was a part of me that believed that I was going to see my wife. So we get there and it’s nighttime and I’m in the same suit that I buried my two daughters in Hartford in and I walk into a funeral parlor and I see my entire church family from Destin, Florida. I saw for the first time my two year old baby in a casket and I remember that something went through me and I hit the floor and my friends they came and they pulled me up and said, “You’ve got to get through this.”

I saw Ellen and Bronson and I remember that night going home in Newton and I didn’t want to be around anybody. That night, I prayed, “God bring them back to life. You can do it.” He’s God. He can do anything. I remember I had all of my anointing oil out and I wouldn’t accept it and the next morning my brother came to pick me up and we were going to the front of the church and I don’t say a word to nobody.

We get to the funerals and the church is packed and I still don’t say a word to anybody. Pastor Steve gets up there and preaches a message and I remember it. Then it came time to say goodby. They had the caskets open and I went to that casket over Ellen and I couldn’t even walk at the time. My coach had to hold me up because I was coughing up blood that morning and my ribs were broken and my lungs were punctured.

I couldn’t even breath, really. I remember whispering to Ellen, “Get up. You can hear me. You get back up.” My coach said, “Siran, we got to go.” I said, “Coach, if you just let me kiss her before I go.” I couldn’t bend down myself; he had to help me bend over because of my ribs. When my lips touched her lips, something just shocked me because her lips were ice cold. It’s like a realization that this is a finality with death.”

Siran Stacy and the Lonely Walk

“God finally gave me a word when people would ask me. This last year on the back of my porch I was reading in the book of Jonah. Jonah prayed to God because he was in the belly of hell. He said he “was in hell.” That spoke to me. If there was any word that I could describe in 11-19-07, that’s what it is: is hell. That’s what it was. I was in that hell. I could somehow connect with Jonah; his life, his mission, things that he didn’t accomplish; he didn’t do, and yet now he’s in hell and he wanted out.

He wanted out. That’s what I wanted. I just wanted out from the reality of not hearing my little babies footsteps running around in the house on the wooden floor; from the memories of the failures that I had as a husband over my wife; from the times I didn’t show up from some of my sons games because I’m running around trying to make money and I’m putting other things first. I wanted out from the guilt, from the loneliness, from being just a single dad, alone. My little girl kept saying, “Daddy, why won’t mama come home?” The only way to come out, to get out is to pray.”

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