Wesley Michael Spano loved playing baseball.
Years of learning the game from his father and brother led to playing as a pitcher for his high school team.
In college, Wesley dreamed of earning a walk-on spot with UF’s baseball team.
That opportunity never came.
“It just feels like something’s missing,” his brother, Alec Spano, said. “You’re not really supposed to lose a brother that young.”
On Jan. 13, Spano found his brother outside Trusler Hall after he took his own life at the age of 19.
• • •
Wesley and his brother could have been twins.
They were born a year apart, but their appearance and interests were nearly identical.
“When we were younger, we pretty much spent the whole day together,” Spano, a UF applied physiology and kinesiology junior, said.
The son of Michael Spano and Laura Hirsch, Wesley was born on Sep. 25, 1996, and lived in Hollywood, Florida.
At Saint Thomas Aquinas High School in Fort Lauderdale, Wesley competed on the same field where his brother once played.
He spent one season playing junior-varsity baseball before joining the varsity team for his final two seasons.
As the team’s main relief pitcher — the pitcher who typically plays in the final innings of game — Wesley was often the last player an opposing team faced.
He relied on a strong left arm and a trio of pitches as he went through the motions.
“It’s one of those things that, as a brother, you’re very proud of,” Spano said. “He just took over after I left.”
Away from the field, Wesley performed at weddings and birthdays as the owner of a disc jockey company.
And despite a packed schedule outside of school, Wesley still achieved a nearly perfect high school GPA of 3.9, which gave him a weighted GPA of about 5.2.
After serving on the National Honor Society and the Spanish Honor Society, Wesley graduated summa cum laude.
He was later accepted to UF, making him one step closer to playing baseball on Perry Field.
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Looking toward the Spring semester, Wesley had a lot on his plate.
Along with athletic dreams, Wesley balanced the rigorous schedule that comes with being a computer science major, Spano said.
“He was walking onto the baseball team — he wasn’t sleeping. He was eating a lot of food to put on weight,” Spano said. “There were a lot of factors that probably played into it.”
Wesley was looking to the future.
He and his brother spoke for the last time near Christmas and made plans to share an apartment during the next semester.
Before their plans were realized, Spano found Wesley in his pickup truck.
Minutes later, Spano fought back tears and called Wesley’s roommate, Stephen Gainesburg.
“When I heard him speaking like that, I became very worried,” Gainesburg, a 17-year-old UF business freshman, said.
Gainesburg said Wesley was missing since Tuesday morning.
“The next morning when I woke up, he still wasn’t there,” he said. “And that’s when I began to get worried.”
After Wesley’s death, Gainesburg went home to Fort Lauderdale, where he plans to stay a few weeks before returning.
Gainesburg said Wesley wanted to put a smile on everyone’s face.
“Sometimes, obviously, he forgot to make sure he had one on his,” Gainesburg said.
• • •
During Wesley’s wake, about 1,200 people paid their respects.
At Saint Thomas, it was a tradition to give players poker chips before a playoff game. Then, before the game started, the players would give back their chips to show each other they were “all in,” Spano said.
Wesley was buried with a blue poker chip in his coffin, he said.
After the funeral, the crowd of about 700 people walked from the church to a nearby baseball field. Some of his former coaches released 19 blue, yellow and orange balloons to symbolize each year that Wesley lived. The colors were a mixture of Saint Thomas’ and UF’s color schemes.
As balloons escaped their view, the onlookers held hands.
• • •
Gainesburg feels Wesley’s absence every morning.
As roommates, he would often wake Wesley up in their room in Trusler Hall — a place Gainesburg plans to avoid.
Spano feels Wesley’s absence on the baseball field.
As teammates, he would face every triumph and failure with his brother.
If he could, Spano would tell Wesley one thing:
“I would just say, ‘I love you.’”
Contact Martin Vassolo at mvassolo@alligator.org and follow him on Twitter @martindvassolo
Wesley Spano (left), 19, poses for a photo with his brother Alec Spano, 20. Wesley Spano died Jan. 13.
