For many football fans, the image at the time was infamous, some could say iconic.

On Sept. 24, 2012, at CenturyLink Field in Seattle, with the Green Bay Packers playing the Seahawks, side judge Lance Easley signaled that Golden Tate, then a Seattle wide receiver, caught a touchdown pass on a wild last play of the game to give the Seahawks a 14-12 win.

Broadcast by ESPN on Monday Night Football, it was a Hail Mary pass thrown by quarterback Russell Wilson, with the ball at the Green Bay 24-yard line.

Back then, Easley was a 52-year-old replacement referee due to the referee lockout. He sprinted several yards and made the call, despite television replays showing Packers safety M.D. Jennings initially having his hands on the ball. But as both Tate and Jennings fell to the ground, both players' hands were on the ball.

WHAT HAPPENED next was considered controversial at the time. Back judge Derrick Rhone-Dunn waved both of his arms up in the air. But Easley found enough evidence to rule there was simultaneous possession, which means both players had possession and Tate scored the TD, and he thrust both of his arms in the air to signal his call.

Just two days after the game, an agreement was reached between the National Football League and the NFL Referees Association to end the lockout and for the next week's worth of games, the regular officials were back.

Easley, now a 54-year-old business banker who lives on the beach in Santa Maria, Calif., with his wife, wrote a book titled "Making the Call: Living with Your Decisions," released last August.

He was asked to speak locally about his experience, and that led to his writing a book.

At 8 a.m. on Saturday at the First Presbyterian Church at 521 Lakeside Avenue in downtown Coeur d'Alene, the West Covina, Calif., native will talk about how his faith and family carried him through parts of the aftermath of the call. The event is free and open to the public and Easley will have copies of his book for sale and he will sign copies. Easley's mother, Bonnie, a retired employee of Los Angeles Harbor College, lives in Hayden Lake and attends First Presbyterian.

PART OF the overview that describes part of his book asks one simple question: What if your life hinged on a decision you make in a split second?

"I didn't think something like this would ever happen," Easley said. "They all went up at the same time ... I asked the NFL office, 'When's the last time they saw that type of play?' They said, 'Never.' It doesn't exist in their film archives. I'm the golden goose that gets the play to happen right in front of me. You can remove all the players from it (in your mind), just say there's one guy there. I don't care if it's offense or defense. If he grabs the ball in the air, is that a completion? No, it's not. By rule, he has to come down, with both feet, with control, and make a football move."

Easley acknowledged the significance of the play.

"The play was so bizarre," Easley said. "It got the public and everybody riled up."

Unfortunately, Easley received quite a few death threats from the general public.

"I had a little package delivered to my house," Easley said. "I had the media on my front lawn for a week. People with cameras, hiding down the street, law enforcement there all the time. All the gamblers were the worst, they lost money. You get to where your name's on every TV station, you're more Twittered than Kim Kardashian or Lady Gaga. You're out there where you really aren't trying to be in public and I'm a poster child for the modern era."

While Green Bay fans were a little upset, the Seahawks were just fine with his call.

Easley was invited to umpire at Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman's benefit softball game on July 7 last summer at Cheney Stadium in Tacoma.

"They asked me to make an appearance," Easley said. "The only reason I did it was because it benefited Blanket Coverage and it was for Homes for Heroes, which helps veterans. I agreed and went and did it. It was overwhelming, I had no idea with the amount of autographs (I signed) and I figured I'd slip in; it was way over the top. I may do it this year. (Former Seahawk) Kenny Easley has a Greater Trinity Celebrity Golf Classic coming up on July 17 and 18."

SEVERAL MEMBERS of the media, including former NFL head coach and current ESPN analyst Jon Gruden, who was in Seattle that night as part of the MNF broadcast team, and even some longtime officials said if they were to make the call, they would've ruled an interception.

Easley has always maintained that is not the case.

"That's where people get crazy, they'd never seen the play (up close) and they go, 'Well, the Green Bay guy had the ball more than Golden Tate. Well, that's not what the rule says. It's called simultaneous possession. When they both come on the ball simultaneously, when they see it, you'll see everyone's hands come on it at the same time. Now, when they're in the air and not on the ground, they're trying to get control, but there's no such thing as possession.

"This is where people get sideways, they don't know the rule, they don't understand. We have to wait until the thing works its way out. I saw Tate and he's coming right toward me, when I saw their hands coming on the ball, I'm like, 'Oh, crap' I hope I don't have time to (see his) possession, because I don't want to explain anything. And I knew what I was looking at. Then they hit the ground and Tate's closer to me and both hands, both feet have to be on the ground and then he has to maintain it on the ground. Then they go into a wrestling match and I was over the pile, both of them had possession. It was like identical twins, equal size, equal strength. It wasn't like a 300-pound lineman ripping the ball away from a little guy. These are the same guy and you can't just let them wrestle endlessly, so they both had possession, which goes to the offense."

The officials discussed the play, it went to replay, and it was ruled in Seattle's favor - much to the delight of Seahawks coach Pete Carroll and the home crowd.

"If I stop the play and we talk about it, they'll be playing that music (in the stadium), everyone's going to go nuts, they'll be ripping me a new one," Easley said. "So I said, 'You know what, I know what I have, let's just rack it and sell it. So I did, I just made the call. The game had just expired. It wasn't incomplete, it wasn't a touchback, thank God he (Rhone-Dunn) didn't call either of those. We went to replay, the NFL made the call. Had Tate not come on the ball, and not come onto it simultaneously, had he not been in the air trying to control it, then it would've went to Green Bay, automatically. The problem was, he got involved in it. I coached college football, I don't know why they didn't bat the ball away, why they were trying to catch it. There's no gain for them, except bringing the offense back into the play."

Easley worked in four preseason games that year - in Oakland, Houston, Minnesota and Green Bay - along with a regular season game on Sept. 9 at Soldier Field in Chicago and a St. Louis Rams home game on Sept. 16 against the Washington Redskins.

Easley had been coaching and officiating games for 30 years. He has been a referee at the NCAA Division III and community college levels, as well as high schools.

SO ALL in all, Easley is just trying to spread the message of making the right call.

"I'm just like anyone else," Easley said. "I have to make decisions, so does anyone else. Sometimes your decisions aren't popular, but people have to stand by them. The next side is there's going to be a lot of noise coming at you. When the noise at your life comes at you, you can't be deaf to the noise."

Bruce Bourquin is a sports writer at The Press. He can be reached at 664-8176, Ext. 2013, or via email at bbourquin@cdapress.com Follow him on Twitter @bourq25