JONESBORO -- It's around 8 a.m. on Aug. 27, and Omar Bayless' phone has multiple missed calls and texts.
Bayless awakes, checks his phone and realizes something has happened. He calls one of the friends who has texted him, Deajalon Jones, who has devastating news.
Bayless' longtime friend, Justin Mack, was killed in a shooting a few hours earlier in Waynesboro, Miss., half an hour east of Laurel, where Mack and Bayless grew up and played high school football. Bayless is stunned, then tears begin to flow. He had texted with Mack, 26, just the night before.