[mcrowder]

I'm of two minds here. Call me Cybil if you like.

First - once you chose to go down the road of telling the coach that his team was not allowed to chatter, THAT is the moment the coach should have protested, as it is at THAT point that you made a rules-error. Having failed to protest at that point...

Second - you were completely within your rights to eject this guy for his actions after being warned. If they overturn your ejection based on the fact that you were in fact incorrect in your assertion that his team could not chatter, I would not return.

However, I've been in many tournaments where the "must skip a game" or "ejected for the duration of the tournament" rules are overturned during protest because the nature of the original ejection were not severe enough to warrant missing more than 1 game. I've seen more than one manager who was ejected for simply arguing balls and strikes be allowed to return to coach his team. If they allow this coach to return, but make no bones to this coach that his actions (defying your authority) are not to be tolerated, then perhaps your authority will not be undermined to the point that you can not officiate this tourney.

Back to the first point now. In an OBR game, we, as umpires do NOT have the authority to prevent a team from chattering. It's bush, yes... but it's not against the rules, and your decision to essentially invent a rule here was the root of the problem. The coach was RIGHT when he told you that his team was doing nothing illegal, but he handled it wrong by not protesting right then.