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Independence Bowl: Game crew includes locals
By Greg Gulas
YOUNGSTOWN
When the Missouri Tigers take on the North Carolina Tar Heels in today’s Independence Bowl in Shreveport, La., the Big Ten officiating crew selected for the game will have a local flavor.
Boardman’s Rob Luklan and Julius Livas, both post-season veterans, will join Dan Capron’s crew as a reward for their regular-season work.
Livas is in his 14th season as a Big Ten Conference official and 23rd overall on the collegiate level. He will be working his seventh bowl game. It’s his first since 2009 when he served as line judge for the Eagle Bank Bowl, a 30-21 win by UCLA over Temple at Washington’s RFK Stadium.
“It’s always exciting when you are selected to work the post-season, especially a bowl game,” Livas said. “It remains the one goal for every official in every league because it is based on your performance throughout the regular season.
“When you are selected, they’re telling you that you had a pretty good year,” Livas said.
Luklan, a back judge and Big Ten official the past three seasons, has been a collegiate official since 1992, starting out in the Ohio Athletic Conference before working 11 seasons in the Mid-American Conference.
The Cardinal Mooney graduate and former Youngstown State University baseball player, also is drawing his seventh bowl assignment. It’s his first since 2008 when he worked the Hawaii Bowl, a 49-21 victory for Notre Dame over host Hawaii.
“With officials from our league spread out all over the Midwest, it’s really an honor to be working with Julius [Livas], a fellow hometown official,” Luklan said. “Leaving on a holiday is always tough, but it comes with the territory and I cannot tell you how much I appreciate the understanding family that I have.”
Livas and Luklan, though on different crews during the regular season, are no strangers to working together, having worked last year’s first college football game at Wrigley Field since 1938 when Northwestern played host to Illinois.
Due to field space constraints, the game marked the only time in NCAA football history where both teams moved the football the same direction the entire game.
Livas is a South High alum and Bowling Green State graduate who played football for the Falcons from 1968-71.
He and Luklan are no strangers to high-profile games on a national stage.
This past season, Livas’ crew worked the Ohio State-Michigan, Ohio State-Miami, Michigan-Michigan State and Nebraska-Wisconsin games. Luklan and his crew had the opportunity to work the first-ever Heroes Game between Nebraska and Iowa as well as the near upset of Illinois over Wisconsin.
Luklan is a parole officer with the State of Ohio Adult Parole Authority and Livas will begin his 34th year this March as an Allstate Insurance agent in Boardman.
While neither has worked games this season involving the Tigers or Tar Heels, both agree that the game should be highly competitive.
Both left on Christmas Day, using Christmas Eve to spend time with their families.