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Page 1 FOCUS - 6 of 9 DOCUMENTS Copyright 2000 N.Y.P. Holdings, Inc. All rights reserved. The New York Post August 23, 2000, Wednesday SECTION: All Editions; Pg. 073 LENGTH: 1266 words HEADLINE: REQUIEM FOR A REFEREE; TEARS & RESPECT FOR TRAGIC REFEREE BYLINE: Wallace Matthews BODY: I AM watching Mitch Halpern work and I am wondering, "How could a man so in control of a chaotic situation ever allow his own life to get so out of control?" It is a moment frozen in time from nearly four years ago. Evander Holyfield is beating the Iron out of Mike Tyson, and the third man in the ring - indeed, the third-most important man in the sports world that night - is referee Mitch Halpern, then 29 years old, ready, confident and in charge. He is watching them work, staying close enough to keep an eye on things and yet far enough to not get into the way, bent forward, eyes wide open, seeing all the possibilities for injury, mayhem and death that occur instantaneously in a boxing ring, and he is prepared to deal with any of them. How, then, could he not see a way out of whatever it was that caused him to put a gun to his head Sunday night in Las Vegas and end his life at age 33? "There was something that I missed, that we all missed," said veteran Las Vegas referee Richard Steele, Mitch Halpern's friend, mentor and surrogate father. "That's what hurts so much, that he was going through all this pain and none of us knew." Steele was sobbing as he spoke on the phone from his office, the same way the lady at the Nevada Athletic Commission broke down the minute she heard the caller wanted to discuss Mitch Halpern. "It's a terrible, terrible thing," said the lady, whose name is Barbara. Steele loved Halpern for his dedication, first to becoming a boxing referee, and then to becoming the best boxing referee he could be. They had met at a fight, the then-23-year-old Halpern greeting the 50-ish Steele on his way out of the ring and telling him, "I want to be a referee." Steele had heard that one before, and told the kid to show up at his gym the following Monday. "He was there," Steele said. "Every day for five years, he was there. He worked his butt off." As part of his training, Halpern asked Steele, a former professional light-heavyweight, to box with him so he would better understand what a fighter was going through in the course of a bout. Page 2 REQUIEM FOR A REFEREE; TEARS & RESPECT FOR TRAGIC REFEREE The New York Post August 23, 2000, Wednesday "Sometimes his nose would bleed, but he was so proud that he did it," Steele said. "He always felt it would help him make the right decisions in the ring. That's when I knew he would be a great referee." "This was a chosen boy," said Dr. Flip Homansky of the Nevada Commission. At the time of his death, Mitch Halpern was not the most experienced referee in boxing, or the biggest or even the best. Not yet, anyway, although he was well on his way. But he was dedicated and he was fair and he was fearless. All you have to do is watch the tape of that first Holyfield-Tyson fight, from Nov. 9, 1996, to know that within the ropes, Mitch Halpern had everything under control. A star was born that night, and his name was not Holyfield. It was Halpern. More than 100 times that night, Mitch Halpern had to wedge his 5-foot-9, 160-pound body between nearly a quarter-ton of angry heavyweights, trying to keep order in a situation that was teeming with disorder. Mitch Halpern performed as well as any boxing referee ever has in a major fight that night, so well, in fact, that the Nevada Athletic Commission assigned him to work the rematch as well, seven months later. But the Tyson camp wouldn't have it, because Mitch Halpern did his job all too well that night. They were every bit as afraid of Mitch Halpern as they were of Holyfield. He wouldn't let Tyson get away with his typical repertoire of dirty tricks, the hitting after the bell, the elbows on the inside, the sneaky-quick left hook delivered over the top as the referee breaks a clinch. Instead, Mitch Halpern let them fight, the way a good basketball referee will let them play. Most important, he resisted the temptation to stop the fight at the end of the 10th round, with Tyson out on his feet, and allowed it to go to its natural conclusion, a remarkable decision considering the fact that Mitch Halpern had previously been accused of allowing a fight to go too long, a fight that resulted in a man's death. He refused to cave in to those demons the same way he refused to cave in to the moans from Tyson's corner, also known as The Whine Cellar, that Holyfield was head-butting their man, because, as he said afterward, "Both guys led with their heads. There was no intentional fouling in there at all." Team Tyson's protest caused Mitch Halpern to step down voluntarily from doing the rematch, even after the commission had upheld his selection. "I don't want to overshadow the fight," he had said. It was just as well, because Halpern's replacement, Mills Lane, was forced to make one of the toughest calls in boxing history when he ended the bout barely eight minutes after it started, disqualifying a scared and frustrated Tyson for intentionally biting off part of Holyfield's ear. "I think [Halpern] was the best referee in the world," said Lane. "I loved him like a son." Tyson's corner treated Halpern shabbily after the first fight, looking to blame the referee for its own fighter's failures of character. And they disregarded the most important thing Mitch Halpern said after the fight, that when the moment of truth came in the early seconds of Round 11, he no longer saw Mike Tyson, Cash Cow, but just another boxer who was in real danger of being injured or even killed. "I just saw a hurt fighter in there," Mitch Halpern said. "Any more punishment would have been too much, so I just stopped it. I didn't want to see him get hurt." Page 3 REQUIEM FOR A REFEREE; TEARS & RESPECT FOR TRAGIC REFEREE The New York Post August 23, 2000, Wednesday Mitch Halpern had seen boxers get badly hurt before, from the closest spot in the house. A year before, Mitch Halpern had been the referee the night a journeyman boxer named Jimmy Garcia collapsed and died following what appeared to be a routine 11th-round TKO by Gabe Ruelas. Like all referees do following a tragedy, Mitch Halpern blamed himself. Nearly 20 years ago, a Korean fighter named Deuk-Koo Kim collapsed and died after a close, furious fight with Ray Mancini. Not long afterward, the referee, Richard Greene, put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger. No one knows if Kim's death led to Greene's suicide, and Steele doubts the Garcia fight had anything to do with Halpern's decision to apply a permanent solution to a temporary problem, the best description of suicide I have ever heard. Five years ago, Steele, an ordained minister, had performed the marriage ceremony for Mitch Halpern and his wife, Maggie. A year later, they had a daughter, Maris. But last year, there had been a painful divorce, and talk out of Vegas is that a quarrel between Halpern and his new fiancee led him to send Maris out of the room, enter a closet in his bedroom, and pull the trigger. Plus, Halpern's mother had recently been diagnosed with breast cancer. "Some people just bleed on the inside," Homansky said, "and we don't know anything about it." I prefer not to imagine the scene, or speculate on his reasons or project into the future the terrible consequences Mitch Halpern's decision will have on the people who knew and loved him. When I want to remember Mitch Halpern, I will run the tape of a prizefight held on Nov. 9, 1996. Every time I do, Mitch Halpern will appear the way I wish to remember him. Forever young and ready and confident, and most of all, in charge of the world around him. GRAPHIC: TRAGEDY: Gifted and respected boxing referee Mitch Halpern - working first fight between Mike Tyson (left) and Evander Holyfield on Nov. 9, 1996 - took his own life in Las Vegas on Sunday at 33. Reuters LOAD-DATE: August 23, 2000.

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