Spartan Sparks

Love is in the air! Find out how UT played cupid for these four couples.

Tyler Ward ’16 proposed to Briana Mansour Ward ’15 next to the Hillsborough River.

When most students arrive on campus for orientation, their brains are buzzing with questions: Will my roommates be fun? What if I get the world’s hardest chemistry prof? Do I really have to do my own laundry for the rest of my life?

But probably not: Hey, is that cutie lugging boxes into the room next door my future spouse?

Yet even if it’s not top of mind, long- term love has a way of infiltrating college connections, as these Spartan couples can attest. Their awwww-inspiring stories show just how well UT can orchestrate a lasting love match.

TAKE ME TO THE RIVER

Those first-day-of-college butterflies hit Briana Mansour Ward ’15 harder than most. In late summer of 2012, she was moving into McKay Hall when Tyler Ward ’16, her new next-door neighbor, dropped in to introduce himself. “It felt like the world had stopped,” she says.

“I was mesmerized by his kind eyes and gentle smile.” Tyler, who’s now a digital advertising account manager, felt a similar attraction: “All I remember thinking that day was, ‘Wow, I need her to be mine.’”

But love and marriage weren’t the next steps. It was the start of college, after all — the beginning of their independent adult lives. They became friends first. They’d study together, often sitting on a bench by the Hillsborough River, overlooking downtown Tampa. This became their preferred meeting place. They’d eat their favorite chicken parmesan there and even had their first kiss there, though the time wasn’t right for romance. Even when Tyler moved off campus the next year, they’d unexpectedly run into each other at the bench, as if fate wanted them to be together.

They would bump into each other at other spots too, and their chemistry was evident. “People would say, ‘Wait, you two are just friends?!’” recalls Briana. They weren’t for long. After graduation, Briana moved to Boston for law school (she’s now a recent grad), while Tyler headed to New York. He came to visit her in August 2016, and that’s when they officially became a couple.

In 2018, the couple visited their old stomping grounds, since Briana’s younger brother, Nathaniel, was a student at UT. They made a beeline for their bench but discovered, alas, that it had been torn out to make room for a walkway by the water. The spot still had its stunning view, which provided the perfect backdrop as — wait for it — Tyler got down on one knee, with Nathaniel filming the proposal. Married since last August and now living in Boston, the newlyweds say UT is still the heartbeat of their love story. As Tyler puts it, “UT not only gave me my best friend, it also gave me my beautiful wife.”

The Telfairs in New York City in December 2018.

The Telfairs, on their honeymoon in Antigua, in June 1989.

A LOBBY LOVE STORY

“It was not love at first sight,” says Valerie (Galle) Telfair ’89 with a laugh, describing how she met her husband, Charlie Telfair ’87. During her freshman year, she was spending time in her resident adviser Dan’s room, where students congregated and studied. Dan’s best buddy from high school — Charlie, then a junior — often popped by.

Val’s strongest impression of him: when Charlie stuck his head into the room, saying everyone needed to go to a campus-wide event hosted by the Phi Delts ... now. What a bossy guy, she thought as she complied. At the event, however, he came over and chatted her up. Just then, her feelings changed — completely. What a sweet and wonderful guy, speaking to me, a lowly freshman, she thought. He later admitted that he had noticed her, that serious young woman studying in Dan’s room.

Their romance bloomed in the Plant Hall lobby. “It was the heart and soul of campus. Charlie and I were there together all the time, especially between classes or to get to our mailboxes. We’d see professors hanging out and talk with them,” says Val. In the lobby and wherever else they went, Charlie and Val bonded big-time, thanks to the ease with which they communicated and their spirited natures.

They married right after Val graduated, near her family’s summer place in New York’s Adirondack Mountains. (Unfortunately, their car collided with a wayward cow that weekend, which led to their being nicknamed the Griswolds, after the hapless but hilarious family in the National Lampoon movies.) Making their home in the Sarasota area, lawyer Charlie and realtor Val haven’t been shy about returning to campus. “We’ve taken our kids as newborns to Pops in the Park on the verandah,” says Val, “and we love seeing the school evolve. President Ron Vaughn, my former marketing professor, has done an amazing job.”

In fact, they turn up on campus quite often since one of their three children is a UT student. “Our son has this preconceived notion that you meet your future spouse at UT!” Val says. Time will tell if second-generation UT wedding bells start chiming.

The Weizers at the U.S. Marine Corps Ball in Brussels, Belgium, in November 2017.

The Weizers in front of Plant Hall in May 1996.

AN ROTC ROMANCE

When Maria (Fulgencio) Weizer ’96 suited up in camo, a hat and boots as a freshman for the first ROTC Leadership Lab at UT, it was so scorching hot outside that she passed out, and her squad leader — a junior named Paul Weizer ’94, MBA ’11 — got her help.

That same year, they planned the Military Ball, UT’s annual formal dance and ceremony. Since Maria didn’t have a car, she’d ride with Paul, racing around town to florists and the like, as their friendship bloomed into a relationship. Maria jokes about how their romance got serious, explaining, “It became pretty solid when we went in together to buy a printer to use for our UT classwork. It was a pain to go to the computer center to print stuff, so we put our money together to buy our own. After that, we had no choice but to stay together!”

Kidding aside, by Maria’s junior year, when Paul had graduated and started U.S. Army flight school, they decided to marry over winter break. The timing, however, became tight as Paul had to report back to training in Alabama at the end of the year. They tied the knot twice to stay on schedule. UT’s Sticks of Fire sculpture in Plant Park was the setting for the small, first ceremony, performed just after the stroke of midnight on Dec. 30. This allowed Paul to race around on the morning of the 30th and get the paper- work filed before offices closed for the holiday. Later that day, after sunset, they had another, larger ceremony and their reception in Rocky Point — and could relax and revel, knowing Paul could make it to training in time.

That was in 1994. Two children have since rounded out their family. Paul has stayed with the Army — he’s currently a colonel and program executive officer — and the couple has recently landed back in Tampa. Maria is a laboratory technologist at a community college, and they look forward to their campus visits. As Paul puts it, “UT is the foundation upon which I have built my family and my career. Every time I return, it is like coming home.”

DID YOU AND YOUR SPOUSE GRADUATE FROM UT, TOO?

Submit your love story and photos to spartansparks@ut.edu and post it on social media using #SpartanSparks.

The Kahns with their sons (Vinny, 2, and Kenny, 7) in their yard in November 2018.

ALUMNI AMOUR

Not all UT matches are kindled while the lovebirds are students. Sometimes it happens years later. In 2005, Jamie (Ferenbach) Kahns ’04 headed to an Odessa, FL, country club to watch a UT alumni golf tournament hosted by her beloved Delta Zeta sorority and the Sig Ep fraternity.

As the event wound down, she helped an alumnus find lost photo albums he’d brought to show his fraternity brothers. That guy, Bob Kahns ’00, recalls, “We had so much in common. Even though I graduated four years before her, we knew some of the same people. Plus, we had that connection as UT alums. It makes you feel as if you both grew up in the same small town.”

Fast forward four months, and that connection was blazing brightly. Jamie, who’s now a senior vice president/market manager at Bank of America, moved in with Bob, a digital marketing manager. “I joke that I fell in love with his 8-month-old Boxer named Max. I had an 8-month-old cat Missy, and those two got along great. So did we. And we had the same goals; we were both working on master’s degrees,” she says.

A few months later, they were engaged and planned a wedding in just 100 days. “The song ‘Fools Rush In’ was mentioned as a good soundtrack for us,” says Jamie, “but our timetable worked fine!” Married on St. Pete Beach with their toes in the sand, Jamie and Bob were surrounded by UT alumni. “My sorority did flowers and an arbor,” Jamie adds.

That tie to Greek life and the school stays strong. “We were each president of our fraternity/sorority and won Greek Man and Greek Woman of the Year when we served. We have UT memorabilia on every wall of our home office. We both joined the Alumni Board, we climbed the minaret and did a Spartan Run together, and we almost never miss the President’s Reception and Gasparilla Brunch,” Jamie notes.

Living in Bradenton, FL, the Kahns have two boys now, ages 7 and 2. “Both boys have UT shirts and have been on campus multiple times,” says Jamie. Future Spartans? We’ll see!

By Janet Siroto