About three weeks into wrestling season, Darren Foxwell was teary-eyed as he delivered letters to his coaches at Easton High School. He had to quit.

He explained in handwritten notes that he wanted to relax and enjoy his senior year of high school, and that he wasn’t sure if he had the bandwidth for wrestling. One of his coaches, Jason Biringer, thought the whole situation was a bit weird. When he pulled the teenager out of class a few days later, it didn’t take much for Darren to admit how badly he wanted to come back.

Biringer was happy to have him — the team could always use a humble, encouraging guy like Darren. Less than a month later, he was named a team captain.

“He was a good leader and a super-positive influence on the team,” his coach said. “I think his true strengths were in what he offered his teammates. Whether he won or lost — and he pulled out a ton of great victories — if he took a tough defeat or got caught, he would be upset, and then a minute later, you’d see him right back up front next to the mat cheering on the next guy up.”

The 18-year-old had a maturity and wisdom beyond his years, loved ones said. Perhaps that is why he left such a mark on those around him — childhood friends, classmates in Easton, extended family and even strangers who only recently learned his name. Hundreds of people, including Gov. Wes Moore, Comptroller Brooke Lierman and Treasurer Dereck Davis, paid their respects at his funeral last week.

Darren died June 18 from injuries that he sustained in a single-vehicle car accident the day before. He was riding in the passenger seat of a friend’s car when it crashed outside Trappe in Talbot County in the early morning. The driver survived.

Darren was born Sept. 13, 2006, to Kerry Daly and Len Foxwell, an aide to former Maryland Comptroller Peter Franchot. His sister Colleen, then 2 1/2 years old, showed up to the hospital with the widest grin and a button declaring her big-sister status.

They were inseparable from that day on, she said. Once, their parents walked into his room to find Colleen hitting her baby brother gently with a toy hammer. He’d been crying, and she was trying to fix him, Colleen told her parents.

Darren had a bunch of phases growing up, she said. First, it was horses, then pirates. He was obsessed with camouflage for a while, and there was a period when he would only wear white tank tops. At the time, all he wanted to do was dig in the backyard.

His father was a big baseball fan, so Darren started playing in Little League when he was 4, a career that continued for about six years. He played soccer in middle school and would have kids over to kick a ball around.

Darren made friends easily, his family said. He kept in touch with many of his baseball and soccer teammates years after he stopped playing. His core group of childhood companions remained his best friends throughout his life. His sister described him as “magnetic.”

Kaleb Ardison, now a student at Towson University, moved across the street from Darren about a decade ago. They became instant friends, often playing soccer or going swimming together.

Two years older than his new neighbor, Ardison considered Darren a little brother, but he still went to him for guidance. Darren was good at giving advice about girls, especially sisters. When Ardison called to complain about his, Darren gave him pointers — he and Colleen had a model relationship.

“He taught me how to be nicer to my older sister and make time for friends as well,” Ardison said. “There was a time where I wouldn’t want to go out and whatnot. He would always kind of rope me back in.”

Darren gave advice freely when asked and helped loved ones put problems in perspective, they said. Even Colleen’s high school boyfriend headed to Darren’s room to get his thoughts after a lovers’ spat.

During his sophomore year at Easton High School, Darren started wrestling and also joined the lacrosse team. At 6-foot-3, the teen was an “unlikely wrestler,” his father said, but he fell in love with the sport.

“It was just him,” Len Foxwell said. “He alone was responsible for his success or failure.”

That year, Darren injured his knee while wrestling, so he had to sit out for the majority of the lacrosse season. Unlike some of his teammates, Darren had never played the sport before, but he was OK with not being a starter.

Darren was never one to seek out the spotlight, telling his sister that he was a “practice warrior.” Colleen laughed as she recalled the conversation — Darren never really thought of himself as funny, but he always had a quick comeback or a witty remark on hand.

“The honor and the character with which he competed in those sports made him far better than I ever was,” Len Foxwell said.

Those traits carried over to other parts of his life, family said. In elementary school, he asked his mom to pack him a ham-and-cheese sandwich instead of peanut butter and jelly so he could eat lunch with a student who sat alone at a table for kids with nut allergies.

When Darren was young, he sometimes heard students talking about a classmate who had a visible medical condition. He reminded them that “there’s nothing to be scared of,” Colleen recalled. “He just looks differently than we do.”

When Darren saw the classmate left out of group activities, he went out of his way to include him.

“I’m supposed to be the good influence for him, and he’s being the good influence for me,” Colleen said.

Darren was set to attend Bethany College in West Virginia on a lacrosse scholarship this fall. He didn’t expect to be recruited, given his limited play time, but he received two offers.

He was excited about living near the mountains and told his father he wanted to learn how to fly-fish in the stream running through campus. His mother was an avid birder, so Darren showed her all the different types of birds that live there.

Darren was going to serve as a camp counselor this summer at the local YMCA, a job he also held last year. He was the “quintessential YMCA kid,” attending camp there in his younger years, Len Foxwell said. His mom also worked at the facility.

With his birthday approaching in September, Darren was looking forward to the annual tradition of playing paintball with friends and family. It will continue in his absence, his father said.

Darren and Colleen often talked of buying land and raising their families together. Colleen loved the beach, while Darren loved the mountains, so they compromised and said they would live in California.

But Easton was still home. The siblings dreamed of coming back in their older years, because Darren loved the town so much and thought it had everything a retiree needed.

“I don’t remember a time without him,” Colleen said, “and I never imagined a time without him.”

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