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It is interesting to me that there is such a dichotomy in the responses from other umpires across the country. I've thought long and hard about what's been said and written and I've tried (as much as possible to put myself in Russell Hall (umpire)'s shoes). Here's where I stand.
1) Was Bergin Tatham or Russell Hall the agressor in this confrontation? It is fairly obvious to me that Tatham was the aggressor. Hall maintained a good 3-5 feet from Tatham as he ejected him and then walked away. Tatham paused to look at the crowd with his hands up, then chose to move toward Hall. He put his hands on Hall without Hall ever seeing what was happening. He may not have "spun Hall around" but he certainly initiated contact. He then began to jaw with Hall before the supposed "head butt".
2) Did Hall head butt Tatham? We will never really know the answer. He definitely made contact with Tatham. Was it an intentional action or merely a by-product of a heated argument? Without being there and hearing every word, without knowing the type of guy Hall is, it is inconclusive. I am a little dubious that any umpire would think of intentionally head butting a coach, helment or not. But there is such thing a fight or flight response and that may have kicked in.
3) Should Hall have taken off his mask? Absolutely...He made a mistake by not taking it off. But did it change or affect the outcome? Doubtful since Tatham's aggression didn't seem to be affected by the helmet on or off. If the head butt was intentional he could have done it with or without the mask.
4) Should Hall be punished as well? Again, I don't know what happened throughout the entire game. Maybe he baited Tatham or something of the like. I can tell you that Mark Dreibelbis, NCHSAA Supervisor of Officiating, will not tolerate any junk or sloppiness. If there is fault by Hall, Dreibelbis and his staff will handle it. On the merits of only the tape, I would only caution Hall in the future to remove his mask and I would chastize his partner for not getting there sooner (he never appears in the video that I can see).
I have wondered how I would have reacted had someone come up from behind me and put their hands on me. Several people have said it didn't look aggressive or it wasn't that big of a deal. How do we know? We can only judge that yes there was contact and a coach put his hands on the official. I can't tell you precisely what I would do but I know any contact would shock me and probably kick in my fight/flight response.
I think it is extremely easy to say how we as umpire's would/should handle this. The problem is that very few officials (thankfully) have ever had to deal with this. I do know one thing, Tatham is extremly lucky from a criminal standpoint. What he did by coming up from behind Hall and grabbing him is a Class 1 Misdemeanor under NC Law as it clearly was assault.
As an aside, last year in an American Legion game I missed a batter interference call late in the game. The defensive head coach came out to argue with me. I still had my mask on when about 30 seconds in the discussion I realized I had not removed it. I removed it like you should by pulling out and then up. In the process, I "billed" the coach with my mask. He could have gone nuts but is a class guy and immediately accepted my apology. Luckily, the discussion started calmly and ended calmly.
Lawrence
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