As a Tennessee resident for just over a decade now, one of my favorite recent movie lines is the one uttered by the character named Bob Lee Swaggert (Mark Wahlberg) in Shooter, "Welcome to Tennessee, patron state of shooting stuff."
More below.
Apparently, a shooting range in Kingston, Tennessee had planned a promotional event at which customers could shoot at bobble-head figures of Lane Kiffin and Monte Kiffin.
For those fortunate enough to have stayed ignorant about the Vols football program, Lane Kiffin was their coach for one year (2009), having gotten the job based on one year of unsuccessful head-coaching experience with the Oakland Raiders of the NFL. Monte is his father, a highly regarded, long-time defensive coach and coordinator in the NFL. Monte went to Knoxfille with Lane to be their defensive coordinator. After one mediocre year (pretty good on the field, but a bit scandalous off of it) in Knoxville, Kiffin was inexpicably offered the head-coaching job at USC, which he took, and Monte went with him.
It says a lot about Vols football fans that some would still want to pretend to shoot these guys a year later, after bringing in a whole new coaching staff, led by Derek Dooley, which did a pretty good job this past year.
The story gets stranger. According to the Knoxville News Sentinel, Frontier Firearms has altered the nature of the event. Seems this was alos a charity event which would benefit, of all things, Second Harvest Food Bank. Understandably, some of the supporters of Second Harvest had some difficulty with an event where some people would pretend to shoot other people, even in East Tennessee.
Instead of shooting bobbleheads of Kiffin and his father, University of Southern California defensive coordinator Monte Kiffin, Frontier Firearms on Gallagher Road plans to adopt them out.
"For a $5 donation, bobble-head lovers may take home their very own Monte or Lane Kiffin bobble-head doll to love and nurture as they see fit," shop owner Brant Williams said this afternoon.
Frontier offered a suprisingly sarcastic non-pology as part of its announcement that the event was being modified.
"In addition, each $5 donator will be entered in a drawing for a one-year range membership, handgun classes, other prizes, and unless tree huggers protest too loudly the opportunity to shoot at paper targets.
"While we believe our choice of targets has no bearing on evil and would be unrelated to past, present, or future criminal acts, we concede that shooting bobbleheads is in poor taste - especially in light of the tragic shooting in Tucson. Sometimes what sounds like fun or a good idea just isn't and as we have said all along, no one wishes harm to Coach Kiffin."
Some local churches which support Second Harvest have agreed to do some fund-raising to make up for the lost revenue for the charity. Read the article for what seems like a strikingly clueless response from Second Harvest's local director. I am trying to give her the benefit of the doubt based on the limited context given to her remarks.