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Afro-haired goofyfooter from Jacksonville Beach, Florida; the 17-year-old winner of the hotly contested 1968 East Coast AAAA circuit. "There isn't a surfer in the East who can put his board into a given position on a wave faster or with greater confidence than Joe," 

 magazine said that year. "When Joe is hot and surfing radically, he can't be touched."

Roland began riding waves in 1964 at age 13 and paid for his first board by "washing pretty much every car in Atlantic Beach" for a buck a pop. Slender and light-footed, Roland became a skilled noserider, and his smooth style was often compared to that of David Nuuhiwa.

In 1968, the Eastern Surfing Association debuted its elite AAAA division, and the 17-year-old Roland, who'd been surfing just four years, ended the season ranked #1, ahead of such internationally-known East Coasters as Mike Tabeling, Claude Codgen, and Gary Propper. Along with fellow Jax Beach surfers Larry Miniard, Bruce Clelland, and Dick Rosborough, Roland also brought attention to north Florida's surf scene—Cocoa Beach, up to that time, had been virtually synonymous with Sunshine State waveriding.

Not long after Roland's AAAA win, Hansen Surfboards debuted a Joe Roland signature model board. He later formed a boardmaking company with Miniard and Rosborough.

Quiet-voiced and easygoing, Roland competed in the World Surfing Championships in 1968 and 1970. He was a finalist in the small wave division of the '69 Peru International, and later that year won the East Coast Surfing Championships, held in Virginia Beach. "Joe was so jazzed," 

 noted of Roland's ECSC win, "his electric hair was emitting sparks as he walked off the beach."

Roland was elected to the East Coast Surfing Hall of Fame in 1998. Vincent, Brad, and Paul Roland, Joe's younger brothers, were all well-regarded East Coast surfers. Roland had a long career in computer programming

Among the fittest surfers of his age during the 2000s, still riding high-performance shortboards into his 70s, Roland nonetheless died suddenly in 2024, of a heart attack, while surfing just south Jacksonville Beach. He was 73. 

Roland, Joe

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