J.D. Cleavinger gives official call on his 44-year refereeing career

A whistle blows on a close play and, predictably, half of the crowd is in uproar.

Shouts and cries ring out. “A terrible call!” “A makeup call!” “A homer call!”

It’s a convenient rationalization: the official — a face made anonymous behind an umpire’s mask; or a person made indiscernible beneath black-and-white stripes — is out to get us.

“It’s human,” says J.D. Cleavinger, 65, who’s been calling games since 1967. “If I’m coaching in that game, I’m probably thinking the same thing.”

Cleavinger of Lawrence coached football during his entire tenure at West Junior High — where he taught from 1967-1990 — and spent time coaching baseball and track as well.

And since 1967, he’s also been officiating various games around the city and elsewhere. He started small and local and worked his way up to junior college and then Division-I college action.

But the striped uniform and whistle dangling around his neck have never felt like targets to Cleavinger.

“If you pay any attention to the crowd,” he says, “you’re not doing your job.”

While the games haven’t changed, technology and media coverage have. The crowd now has access to the dozens of camera angles, slow motion and instant replay. The refs? The recipients of so much scorn? They get one view at one speed — fast.

“I call what I see,” Cleavinger says. “Did I see it right? … We’ll see.”

Cleavinger called D-I basketball games for five years and football for seven. He last worked a D-I basketball game in 1985; a different digital age as far as replay is concerned.

Cleavinger is an avid sports fan. He sees both sides of the game — player and official, sympathizing with umpire Jim Joyce and Armando Galarraga when Joyce botched a call on the 27th out of the former Detroit Tiger pitcher’s would-be no hitter last summer.

“It happens like that, you make the decision like that,” he says, snapping his fingers. “You live with it.”

Cleavinger says he never felt any fear. He plays the unbiased observer: he blows the whistle, and hands out judgment as the rules dictate. Like anyone who’s officiated for long, he says he’s been wrong, made a few bad calls. And he’s felt badly.

“If you’re worried about instant replay, if you’re worried about what coaches are going to see on the film after the game,” he says, “you don’t have any business being out there.

“You call what you see and see what you call, and let the chips fall.”

Rob Cleavinger, J.D.’s son, remembers traveling with Cleavinger on many officiating trips when he was a boy. Sometimes, he’d be in the stands. Other times, he was on the field as a ball boy during football games.

Each time he’d be granted a different view of what the fans and the coaches thought of the officials. Of course, that meant hearing more than a few choice comments about his dad.

“I’m more appreciative of what those guys do,” Rob Cleavinger says. “Let’s be honest, it’s not a real high-paying job. I’m convinced the ones that do it for the longest time don’t do it for the money.

“There’s a reason he’s lasted so long. It’s because he loves what he does.”

“It’s a different feeling,” Cleavinger says of being back where he began his officiating career with the youngsters. He’s doing it for the kids, because, as he sees it, they need someone who is willing and experienced, and frankly, there are fewer people doing it.

Cleavinger no longer calls baseball games, because, as he explains, there’s no telling how long the game will go on. He still wants some time between his day job as a real estate appraiser to do yard work, or simply plop down on the couch and watch television.

Cleavinger can also sit in the stands and be a fan, watching his grandson, Cleavinger, play baseball for Lawrence High.

But don’t expect him to boo the umpire.