The man in blue…

Former Blue Devil Mattingly in the glare of the spotlight at College World Series

WM School District Steve Mattingly’s umpiring career happened by accident.

Today, the former West Memphis Blue Devil is one of the highest profile umpires in college baseball. Many friends from his West Memphis days took special note as Mattingly took his place working behind home plate in last week’s College World Series in Omaha.

Mattingly was a hardthrowing right-handed pitcher for Grafton Moore’s Blue Devils in the mid-1980s. He even pitched a seven-inning no-hitter in summer ball against Blytheville.

He then took his talents to Arkansas State University, where he was utilized as a seldom-used middle reliever.

But his big break in umpiring happened at ASU when he was encouraged by a friend to volunteer to call a local high school baseball game.

“I fell in love with it,” said Mattingly. “So I quit playing baseball so I could ump games.”

Today, Mattingly said he works 40-50 Division 1 college games a year for the Pac 12, the Big West and the Western Athletic Conference. He’s based out of Phoenix, where he runs an umpires school called The Umpire Training Institute.

“People come from all over the country to our school and we have no problem filling up the spots each year,” he said.

In addition to calling last week’s CWS, Mattingly also worked the Fayetteville Regional, where the No. 1-ranked Razorbacks advanced with a victory over Nebraska in the title game.

This year was Mattingly’s third College World Series.

He worked the 2013 Series as UCLA walked away national champs and the 2017 CWS as Florida and LSU met in the title round.

In that series, Mattingly said he was involved in a controversial call in the championship game. He called an LSU runner out at second on the no-slide rule. “I received some rude emails and some threats,” Mattingly said with a laugh. “Referee Magazine even did a story on it. It was actually an easy call.

LSU head coach Paul Maineri didn’t like the call and argued, but Paul’s a very classy coach and it didn’t carry over.”

Mattingly wanted to make sure he gave special credit to Moore, who coached the Blue Devil baseball team in the first five years of the program’s history.

“Coach Moore sat me down for a long talk one day and I really needed to hear what he had to say,” said Mattingly. “I wasn’t focused on the game and I had a bit of a bad attitude. I still remember it vividly. It was in February of 1986, my senior year, and it turned me around. So, this beautiful house I have in Phoenix and the success I’ve had in baseball is due to that conversation Coach Moore had with me.

“Umpiring has been a big blessing in my life. I’ve been doing it 30 years and I’ve enjoyed every minute of it.”