At the beginning when Chris Vaughn asks the sheriff what happened to the former sheriff it is said that the guy was a great man but they found one day he had mysteriously skidded off a deserted road and died hitting a tree. This is a reference to how the real Buford Pusser died.
Director Kevin Bray wanted to update the "Pusser stick" by making it a baseball bat instead of a piece of wood but there were objections, so the compromise was to just add a handle.