- Ron DeSantis spent a year after college teaching at a private school in Georgia, per The New York Times.
- Former students said he had a "smug" air about him and was a "total jock" who partied with students.
- Some students recalled DeSantis fondly while others remembered "unthinkable" pranks he pulled on students.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis once spent a year teaching at a private school in Georgia, where former students said he was a "total jock" who would party with students, according to a New York Times report.
DeSantis, then a 23-year-old graduate from Yale University, used to tell his students that he was bound for the White House when he taught at Darlington School, a prestigious private school in Rome, Georgia, former students told the Times.
"Mr. DeSantis was kind of a smug guy," former student Matthew Arne told the Times, adding that many students were aware that DeSantis had just graduated from an Ivy League school.
"It was like a, 'I'm kind of better than you,'" Arne told the outlet. "And we were all just kids."
A spokesperson for DeSantis did not respond to Insider's request for comment.
Multiple students told the Times that DeSantis frequented parties with Darlington high school seniors and attended some events with graduates where alcohol was served.
"As an 18-year-old, I remember thinking, 'What are you doing here, dude?'" one former student said, speaking on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation, the Times reported.
Former students also recalled an incident in which DeSantis dared a student – who bragged about the quantity of milk he could drink – to chug as much as he could in one sitting. The student complied and proceeded to throw up in front of dozens of other students, according to the Times.
"I think about it, now — I'm a teacher now in public school," Adam Moody, a former student who witnessed the incident, told the Times. "I put myself in that moment, and it's just unthinkable. There's a cruelty to the sense of humor. There's a cruelty to the mentorship."
