University Times

The Pittsburgh Pirates played their final two games in Forbes Field, now the site of Posvar and Mervis halls, on June 28, 1970.

But the last baseball game there actually was played a few days later by Jay W. Roling, with his children and the neighborhood children.

Roling, a Pitt employee since 1965, died at his home in Overbrook on Jan. 14, 2005, of cancer. He was 67.

According to G. Reynolds Clark, vice chancellor for Community and Governmental Relations and Roling’s boss, “Because of Jay’s role at [then-Physical Plant] before they began demolition of Forbes Field, he had the keys to it. He decided to throw a picnic with a baseball game for the neighborhood kids there, who were thrilled just to go out on the field and in the dugouts. That’s just the kind of man he was.”

That’s one of several anecdotes friends and colleagues remembered about Roling, who in recent years was director of City and County Relations here.

According to long-time community relations colleague and friend John Wilds, Roling was a first-rate civil engineer who loved Pitt. “He used to say, ‘I got my education [at Penn State] under the blue and white flag, but I’ve spent my whole life under the blue and gold flag.’ He was a class guy, friendly and personable, who met people extremely well,” Wilds said.

“He was a true engineer at heart,” Reynolds said. “His most trusted possession was his slide rule. He still used it instead of a calculator. In fact, a while back before he became very ill, he was getting his personal things in order here at the office, and he said, ‘Whatever you do, make sure you get this slide rule to Jeannie,’ his beloved wife.”

Ana Guzman, associate vice chancellor for Facilities Management, worked with Roling for several years before he transferred to Community and Governmental Relations in 1994.

“We all had a great appreciation for Jay,” Guzman said. “He was gregarious and congenial and, especially, a good listener, whether it was a business or personal issue. He was always interested in what was going on. He had many friends and knew almost everybody in the community.”

Clark said, “Jay never met a person he couldn’t work with in his role with community relations, whether it was elected officials or staff members. He used to get in the right places, and not always through the front door, because he knew the right person to talk to, which department head, or even which clerk.”

Roling became a well-known figure at city planning and other local department meetings, presenting Pitt’s architectural and engineering plans for capital projects.

“Whether you agreed with what he presented or not, with Jay as the messenger it was well-known that what he presented was important and factual,” Reynolds said. “He would always try to find a common ground, a great consensus-builder.”

Roling also worked in Pitt’s Division of Public Affairs when the University was going through a major expansion in the late-1960s and 1970s that eventually resulted in Posvar Hall and the Law Building, among other construction projects on campus.

That period was one of strained relations between the University and the Oakland community, Roling recalled in a 2000 interview with the University Times. (See University Times March 16, 2000.)

In 1968, then-Chancellor Wesley Posvar announced an ambitious four-phase, seven-building master facilities plan for the Forbes Field site, which Pitt had purchased in 1959, and surrounding areas, Roling recalled.

Posvar presented the plan to the Oakland Chamber of Commerce. When that group expressed no opposition, the University assumed the Oakland community approved of the plan. It was a serious miscalculation and began a period of unparalleled hostility between Pitt and the community, with residual effects of mutual suspicion continuing for years, according to Roling.

“We had a helluva fight over this,” Roling remembered in 2000. “Ultimately, we lost the battle, but I don’t think we really lost the war. Pitt probably didn’t have the money to do the whole four-phase master plan. We did get the law school, Forbes Quad, later David Lawrence was expanded. We also built a nursing school on the Lothrop garage and re-built the American Institute for Research (now the Information Sciences Building).”

Moreover, the University designated Public Affairs, to which he was then assigned, to be the sole liaison for Pitt/community interaction, which greatly smoothed over tense community relations, Roling recalled in 2000.

An accomplished musician, Roling was a member of the Pittsburgh Banjo Club and was known for impromptu violin performances at More’s Restaurant in Oakland and at holiday parties at work.

Roling was a 32nd degree Mason, and a member of that organization’s Royal Order of Scotland and Royal Order of Jesters.

He is survived by his wife, Jeannie M. Starzynski; two daughters, Kirsten Roling of Quincy, Calif., and Lisa Roling Grove of the South Side; three sons, Jay P. Roling and Eric A. Roling, both of San Diego, and Mark H. Roling, of Crafton; two stepsons, William L. Howells and Stephen F. Howells, also of Crafton, and 15 grandchildren.

-Peter Hart