A soft-spoken country boy -- forged on the Mississippi Delta, hardened in the Marine Corps crucible and honed through world-class competition -- squeezed off his last target to claim the Top Shot title on History Channel's second season reload Tuesday night.
Chris Reed, who spent two years in the Corps before becoming a realtor, beat out three finalists to win the $100,000 grand prize. Among them were two fellow former Marines -- Brian Zins and Joe Serafini -- as well as the smack-talking active duty Air Force sniper Staff Sgt. George Reinas.
With production finished months ago, Reed has had to keep his victory a closely guarded secret, even telling two of his most enthusiastic supporters – his two kids – that he came in third.
Military Times' Off Duty, however, scored an exclusive interview with Reed just before he sat down to watch the final episode "and about the biggest party of my life" with about 200 friends and family.
Look for that story in next week's paper, but in the meantime here are some excerpts from the interview:
OFF DUTY: Reinas was talking smack and taking pot shots before show even got started. I quote: "If the realtor from Mississippi beats me, I will buy a house from him, sit in the kitchen and burn it down from the inside." So, has he gotten together his down payment yet?
REED: (Laughing) Man, I wouldn't hold him to that. A lot of that stuff was just in good humor. It added to the drama and suspense of the show. A lot of people I guess are taking George out of context. He's so funny you can't even imagine. I lived with him for six weeks and he's truly a remarkable person and I like him like a brother. He really is a stand-up dude. Stuff like that was just like an inside joke for us, although I didn't know he'd said that at the time. He didn't dare mention it. But I've had to rib him about it ever since the first episode when that came out.
OFF DUTY: It sounds like you were practically born with a weapon in your hands, so not too much of a surprise that you earned the best shooter award in Marine Corps boot camp. And you've certainly done a lot of shooting since then. Is there anything that you didn't learn in the military about marksmanship that you think you should have?
REED: Shooting with both eyes open. I don't think they emphasize that much with military shooters because they're trying to get people qualified. But all my life I've been taught that --even looking down a rifle scope shooting a deer in think brush – that it's imperative you see your target and everything that's around it. Archery is the same way. Most people want to close one eye, but for me it helps with equilibrium and balance and of course it just opens up your field of view so much.
OFF DUTY: Was competing in Top Shot what you expected? It seems like this season it turned a little more towards being a Survivor-type reality show with more politics coming into play.
REED: That couldn't be further from the truth. Though it's coming out like that and being portrayed like that, we were solid in our vote casting and who was getting called out. There was really no back door deals -- hardly -- made. Now, I'm not going to say towards the end there wasn't a few.
OFF DUTY: I guess some might point to the whole ganging up on Jamie Franks, the Navy rescue swimmer, as part of that.
REED: Okay, you're opening up a can of worms now! I'm not taking anything away from Jamie. He turned out to have impeccable character. I wish him the best, but he kind of got started on a bad foot. Our original plan was no big secret. We just wanted the most consistent shooters to make it to the finals. We didn't think that if you went two or three challenges in a row and did not hit a target and cost your team a teammate that you should be entitled to make it to the end. There was no making up for that. He went 0-3 on the bottles, 0-3 on the pool ball challenge and he wasn't very good with the bow target so we gave the easiest target out there – a 16-inch plate to hit at 15 yards. I chose to take the little bitty one. He'd have been there all damn day. I could have made him look like an idiot if I'd wanted to.
His character is coming off a little golden child. No harm to him, I don't mean any disrespect or whatever, but we just didn't see it that way and we were there.
