Only business trips kept Charles Jones of McComb, Miss., from sporting events. Basketball. Football. Whatever. If his kids played it, he was there.

Mr. Jones, 42, a shipping clerk and union representative for Delphi Packard Electric, was traveling to Detroit to complete a union contract.

His wife, Angia, was where he would have been - at a South Pike High basketball game - when word came of her husband's fate.

''He played everything, and actually, he was pretty good,'' she said with a slight laugh, recalling the man she met when both were students at South Pike High. ''He would have been a good retired person because he loved golf.''

Mr. Jones served on the South Pike school board, organized the Brookhaven Hoopfest basketball tournament, and attended St. John Baptist Church. His favorite music was gospel and blues.

A man who valued education, he was proud his daughter, Shemika, 18, was a freshman at the University of Southern Mississippi, one of three children.

''She's the one I'm leaning on, she's keeping me on my feet,'' Mrs. Jones said.