Tennessee Olive Garden Foots Bill For Marshall County Track Team

CHATTANOOGA, TN -- Nearly three months after an unthinkable tragedy struck their school, Marshall County, Ky. High School's track team received a memorable gift Friday, courtesy of a Chattanooga Olive Garden.

The team travelled 250 miles to compete in a Saturday meet at Chattanooga Christian School. In a tradition dating back generations for track teams, the squad gathered together for a pre-meet carb-up pasta-heavy dinner at the Olive Garden.

The restaurant's bar and lobby manager, John Funderburk, told The Tennessean he noticed a logo many of the students were wearing. Because he has a friend whose husband died in the 1970 plane crash that killed 37 members of the Marshall University Thundering Herd football team, that's where his mind went, but he realized the students weren't college aged. So he asked about the logo.

And then he realized the tragedy they faced was far fresher than one from nearly 50 years ago. This group was less than three months removed from a shooting at their school that killed two of their classmates and injured 18 others, including three members of the team.

So Funderburk called his boss in Atlanta. Assistant coach Laken Dirkes Adair posted on Facebook what happened next:

A $789 bill shrunk to 1 cent.

The team's coach told The Tennessean that while the school has been on the receiving end of graciousness since the shooting, it was the the first time the track team had seen such a gesture, particularly poignant because of one of the runners who was injured in the shooting was competing Saturday.