Lorenzo Mauldin stood over the casket, tears streaming down his face.
His friend Chris, a fellow high school sophomore, had been walking to school in Atlanta when he was fatally shot in a drive-by.
It was yet another loss for Mauldin in an existence full of tragedy. And the burgeoning football star, who was 16 at the time, didn't want his own life to be viewed as another cautionary tale. Instead, he wanted to be an example.
But years ago, he never could have imagined that his life would take him here -- from the poverty and drugs surrounding him in east Atlanta to a university campus in Louisville and now Florham Park, New Jersey.