John P. Green, 27, was a devoted Wildcat fan and rarely missed a home game, friends said Monday. He had settled into a good job at Syngenta Crop Protection, lived in Shawnee and was looking forward to the birth of his first child in January.

Friends spent the weekend thumbing through college photos of Green and thinking of his wife, Samantha.

"It's been a rough few days," said Josh Roe, a close friend who lived with John Green in the Alpha Gamma Rho fraternity house from 1999 until 2002. "We've laughed a lot, cried a lot. The worst thing is we're worried about his wife, being pregnant and a widow at 23."

Green was among eight people on the roof of the Cat Tracker as it headed to the University of Kansas football stadium Saturday morning. As the fan bus passed under a 15-foot-high overpass on Iowa Street about 11:35 a.m., Green and another passenger struck the lower portion of the overpass, according to Lawrence police.

Salina resident Christian D. Orr, 34, was airlifted to a Kansas City area hospital with a critical head injury and remains in a hospital. Green was pronounced dead at the scene.

Investigators continued to reconstruct the accident Monday, and officials released few details. Lawrence police spokeswoman Kim Murphree said she didn't know when the reconstruction would be complete and subsequent information released.

The owner of the Cat Tracker, Manhattan attorney and developer Bob Pottroff, told The Topeka Capital-Journal that the No. 1 rule on the bus -- which is not affiliated with Kansas State University -- is no standing on the roof deck. Pottroff said he had spoken to the bus driver, Brent Simonsson, 41, of Wamego, Kan.

Simonsson, according to Pottroff, was a close friend of Green's.

"This is a nightmare," Pottroff told the Topeka paper. "If there was only a rewind button. ... He (Simonsson) is just in total shock. He had no idea they were up there, and he feels as bad as a person can feel."

Simonsson could not be reached for comment.

Police confirmed that 22 people, including Simonsson, were on the retrofitted school bus, a symbol of Wildcat football. The passengers were ages 7 to 66.

Many passengers declined to talk about the accident.

"We were told not to comment on anything that happened," said Jerry Brown, 38, of Beloit, Kan., who was on the bus during the accident.

He called Saturday "a day we'd all love to forget."

City and state laws govern where passengers can legally sit in moving vehicles, as well as the height of vehicles allowed on roadways. State law prohibits vehicles taller than 14 feet, including their loads.

In Lawrence, city laws make it illegal for passengers to ride on a portion of the vehicle "not designated or intended for the use of passengers while the vehicle is in motion." It is a violation for adult passengers as well as the driver.

Of those on board, seven were associated with Syngenta Crop Protection, a worldwide company with U.S. headquarters in Greensboro, N.C.

Green, a Syngenta sales representative in a northeast Kansas territory, and a co-worker were taking five customers to the game, said Sherry Duvall Ford, a spokeswoman with the agribusiness.

"Everyone here is just devastated," Ford said Monday. "Our hearts go out to the Green family."

Ford said she didn't know when the Syngenta group got on the fan bus and the company was trying to sort out events from Saturday. Green, who studied horticulture and business administration, had worked for the company since September 2004.

Roe, the fraternity brother, said the avid golfer was outgoing and was a tremendous leader while in the fraternity. Green, who attended high school in Leoti, a Wichita County town in western Kansas, helped tutor fellow students.

As an upperclassman, he also worked to make sure freshman brothers made it to class and were doing OK.

"Living in a fraternity, sometimes there are cliques," Roe said Monday. "He could transcend those cliques and get along with everybody. ... Never knew anybody to dislike the man, that's for sure."