When Brandy Jaworski couldn't sleep and needed to talk early Tuesday morning, she called her friend Michael VanWagner.
Although it was 2 a.m., VanWagner, a UF history senior, invited her over to talk and drink iced tea.
"He would do literally anything for anyone," said Jaworski, a UF recreation and event management senior.
That afternoon, VanWagner was hit by a car while riding his scooter on West University Avenue, and the friends who had depended on him crowded his hospital room to be there for him. He died Thursday at Shands at UF.
VanWagner was always willing to help anyone - it didn't matter who, said his mother, Deborah VanWagner.
"If there was somebody putting up hay on the side of the road, he stopped and helped them," she said.
The family lives on 40 acres in Sparr, a small town about 20 miles south of Gainesville. VanWagner was close to his parents and older sister, Dana, who works for the army in Iraq. She took a 15-hour flight to come see him after the accident.
"From the day he was born, pretty much, him and his sister were always the closest of close," his mother said. They never fought, except on the basketball court in their yard, she said.
Any day of the week, VanWagner could be found playing pick-up basketball at Southwest Recreation Center, his friends said.
Jaworski said she met him on the court, where he let her score at least seven points during their first game.
Every game after that, though, his competitive streak won out, and he wouldn't give up anything.
He was extremely competitive, she said, and would play with such intensity, his serious face would look almost mad.
As a child, he had wanted to play basketball for UF, his mother said, and he coached 8-year-olds at UF's basketball camp the summer before he started college.
"To him, that was about as good as playing on the team," his mother said.
She said he was good with kids and planned to become a teacher and basketball coach.
He would often invite his younger cousins to Gainesville, where he would take them rock climbing or to football games, she said.
"He's a cousin I could always look up to for anything," said Ryan VanWagner, 14, who said they would go fishing, ride four-wheelers and talk about life.
"He was like a brother to me," said his cousin Justin Wilson, 16. "He was the type of guy everyone could like. There wasn't anybody that couldn't be friends with him."
As an early Christmas present, his parents had paid for four tickets to Saturday's Southeastern Conference Championship Game, and he was looking forward to it more than anything.
His friends put them up for sale on eBay after the accident, intending to give the money to his parents. They were bought by four of VanWagner's high school buddies, who said they planned to go in his honor.
VanWagner will be buried today with one of the ticket stubs.
"The joy that man got out of those tickets for those two weeks, the joy and the bright eyes - he told his uncles and everybody, 'I'm going to the SEC!'" his mother said.
His friend Yolisma Piña, a UF applied physiology and kinesiology senior, met him in chemistry class two years ago, and she said he took her four-wheeling, paintballing and to see her first rodeo.
They liked to work out together, and as a project for class, she made him her guinea pig in a personal training program she created. He gained 15 pounds of muscle, which he was proud of. Even if she couldn't make it, he would be at the gym, she said.
He was 6 feet 4 inches tall.
"Every time he would give you a hug, he would just swallow you," Piña said.
Until this year, he commuted to school from Sparr. He would often get up at 4 a.m. to feed his cows, drive to UF for early class, then drive home to work for his father, Piña said, but he always had time for his friends.
He got excited for football games and would drive up in his beloved Nissan Titan truck to go tailgating.
"His room was a disaster, but his truck was clean," his mother said.
This semester, he moved to Gainesville for his senior year.
"As a parent you think, he could have been here with us," his mother said. But he loved living in Gainesville so much that she doesn't regret letting him move.
His father, Eric VanWagner, was impressed with the quality friends his son had made away from home, many of whom he met for the first time at the hospital room.
"He had no problem being himself in a way that he just brought relaxation and joy and comfort," his father said. "He just brought fun. The joy of life was in that boy."
A funeral service will be held today at 3 p.m. at Sparr Baptist Church, at 1303 E. Highway 329 in Citra.
