Sports

Tennessee Baseball Coach Accosts Unruly Georgia Fans After Arrogant Bat Flip Backfired In Epic Loss

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Tennessee Baseball Coach Fight Georgia Fans Insult Ross Kivett
Andrew Ferguson / Tennessee Athletics

Tennessee assistant coach Ross Kivett did not appreciate what a group of unruly Georgia fans had to say after the college baseball series in Athens earlier this month. He was fully prepared to throw hands.

I do not know why this video is just now coming to light but it is not a great look for the Bulldogs.

Heckling and college baseball go hand-in-hand. However, there is always a line…

Georgia beat Tennessee in college baseball.

The Volunteers, in their first season with Josh Elander as head coach, traveled to Athens for a three-game series at Foley Field on March 13, 14 and 15. The eighth-ranked Bulldogs won on Saturday and Sunday to win two out of three.

Tennessee currently sits near the bottom of SEC standings. It lost all three games against Vanderbilt over this past weekend to drop to 3-6 in conference play and 18-10 overall.

However, we are only focused on the series from March 13-15.

The Vols actually held a 5-0 lead over the Bulldogs after four and a half innings and a 6-3 lead after seven and a half innings during the rubber match on Sunday. They allowed eight runs in the bottom half of the fifth, sixth and seventh innings to squander their lead.

Bryce Callaway blew things wide open for the home team with a three-run blast in the seventh.

And then things got testy.

Tennessee thought it hit the go-ahead home run in the top of the ninth. Catcher Stone Lawless slammed his bat and and pointed at the dugout to celebrate what he thought was a two-run bomb.

And then Cole Johnson skied at the wall to make the catch and rob the home run for out No. 3.

Georgia won the game 8-7 to win the series 2-1. It was absolute cinema!

Assistant coach Ross Kivett went at a group of fans.

Bulldogs fans were ruthless toward the Volunteers throughout the entire weekend. As they should be! Heckling is perhaps the most fun part of college baseball from a spectator standpoint. Especially for the students.

Unfortunately, there will always be a subset of fans who are not creative with their chirps and take it too far.

That seems to be what happened after the third game of the series in Athens. A new video from March 15 shows Tennessee assistant coach Ross Kivett challenge a group of fans who were hurling insults from across the street. He challenged the Georgia fans to say what they said to his face. They kept walking.

A lot of people are trying to frame this video as a poor reflection on the salty losers. I see it differently.

I don’t know exactly what the fans said but Kivett is a pretty chill guy so it must’ve been way out of line to set him off like that. He was also next to his wife (and their infant child), who was just as distraught. A harmless quip wouldn’t have triggered this kind of reaction. The line was obviously crossed.