It was late in the afternoon on Nov. 13, 2015, when news from more than 4,000 miles and an ocean away reverberated inside the SEC's headquarters in Birmingham, Ala.
A bomb had gone off just outside Paris' Stade de France after a terrorist was denied entry to a friendly soccer match between France and Germany -- later revealed as the first in a series of coordinated attacks that killed 137 in the French capital that night.
Byron Hatch was mere days into his time with the SEC as the assistant commissioner for championships, tasked with spearheading operations for the league's football title game.