The Last Words: Nolan Wells’ Football Coach Opens Up About Their Final Conversation

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Last year, during an official football visit to Southwest Mississippi Community College that should have been his shining moment, Nolan Wells instead chose to share the spotlight with his little brother, according to one of the school’s football coaches.

Earvin Moore, the team’s wide receivers coach and general manager, remembers Wells’ younger brother watching with excitement and admiration as Wells tried on a team uniform. But Wells noticed his brother wanted to try one on, too.

Without hesitation, Moore recalls, Wells asked, “Hey, coach, can he dress out, too?”

Moore responded, “Sure.”

“So we outfitted his little brother,” Moore tells PEOPLE. “Even in his moment, he shared it with others and allowed his little brother to be part of the official visit. That’s just who he was. He was unselfish.”

After graduating from Ocean Springs High School, Wells went on to become a wide receiver at Southwest Mississippi Community College, but his time with the team was cut short.

On July 6, his body was found along the shore of Horn Island, off the Mississippi coast.

Two days earlier, he had traveled by boat to the island with friends from high school in what those close to him say should have been one of his final weekends of summer fun before returning to campus for football training and summer classes.

While law enforcement has said they believe Wells may have drowned and have found no evidence of foul play, they are still awaiting autopsy results and continuing to review evidence, including videos and witness statements. Meanwhile, Wells’ family has commissioned an independent autopsy and launched its own probe, publicly questioning claims he chose to remain on the island after his friends left.

“Nolan was a genuine person,” says Les George, 42, the football team’s head coach. “You come across people in life that are just salt-of-the-earth, the kind who want to see the good in everyone and make other people feel good and accepted. That’s who Nolan was.”

George says Wells was the kind of teammate who celebrated others success as enthusiastically as his own.

In the team’s season opener last year, George says, Wells didn’t get any reps.

“But we remember Nolan celebrating the game just as much — if not more than — anyone else, and excited for everybody,” George says. “He was the type of kid who never had a bad day. Regardless if he had a hamstring injury or anything else going on, he was going to be very optimistic.”

Moore and George, who met with Wells regularly throughout the football season, also say he embraced every opportunity to grow in the hopes of becoming a Division 1 athlete.

“Instead of just learning one position,” George adds. “Nolan was learning all four.”

And it was paying off, they say.

“He was the most improved player offensively this spring,” Moore says.

Though Wells and Moore texted regularly, the last time they saw each other in person was at the end of spring semester when Wells stopped by his office. The two chatted before exchanging their signature handshake.

Moore recalls Wells telling him he planned to train hard over the summer.

“Then he said that he loved me and I told him I loved him,” Moore says. “And that was that. And he went about his day, and I went about mine.”

Adds Moore: “I never thought that would be the last time I would see him.”