Bill Roth’s longing to return to the East Coast, and Josh Lewin’s desire to merge into a new family in Southern California, has resulted in UCLA changing play-by-play men on its radio football and basketball games this fall.

The move had been in the works for the last several weeks before UCLA announced it Thursday morning.

Just a month after the Bruins’ 2014-15 college basketball season ended, when Chris Roberts’ retirement was official following a 23-year run at the school, UCLA worked with media rights holder IMG and decided to hire Roth, who had spent the previous 27 years calling sports for Virginia Tech.

Lewin, who has been the San Diego Chargers’ radio voice since 2005 and called Mets games since 2012, was on UCLA’s short list of candidates as well.

Roth said at the time he wanted the professional challenge of what UCLA had to offer, but also said: “Virginia will always be home … The people there are my closest friends.”

After this past UCLA basketball season ended, Roth went back East to wrestle with his options. Colleagues at UCLA had sensed he was homesick and struggling to adjust to the Westwood experience but he did not want to make any rash decisions.

When Roth finally told the Bruins administration of his desire to leave, Lewin had already been up to speed with what was happening, talking to UCLA officials when he was in L.A. with the Mets during a four-game series at Dodger Stadium on May 9-12.

“I’m disappointed, but excited at the same time, so those are pretty mixed emotions,” said Roth, 50, who will stay at IMG and soon move to Winston-Salem, N.C., on a yet-to-be-announced radio project.

“The move was probably just more difficult than I anticipated it would be. I never felt my creative self was there (in L.A.). The people at UCLA were tremendous. The once-in-a-lifetime opportunity was incredible. But I just think at the end of the day, my roots are in the East, this is home, I’m more comfortable here and I felt it was the best thing for me to do after talking it over with my family.

“Professionally and personally, this is an ongoing experience. It’s amazing how much I learned. I did make friends here and there are a lot of great memories. UCLA is a magical place.”

The Pittsburgh native and Syracuse grad started at Virginia Tech when he was 22 and became an 11-time Virginia Sportscaster of the Year, calling more games at Virginia Tech than anyone in school history.

Lewin, who turns 48 in October, is a Rochester, N.Y., native and Northwestern grad whose voice has been on in L.A. doing Chargers games on the team’s KLAC/570 affiliate. The team is on KIOZ/105.3 and KLSD/1360 in San Diego.

Lewin is about to be married this December to Stacy Polner, a Villa Park High grad who has family in Orange County and has been wanting to move back there from New York. Lewin’s two children from a previous marriage, who live in Dallas, are off to college so he says it is easier for him to accept the UCLA responsibilities to his schedule.

“A year or two ago maybe it wasn’t the right time, but it all seemed to be the right time for it to work out for me,” Lewin said. “My bosses have been great, IMG has been great with my pre-existing conditions and now I think I can finally drop anchor in Southern California by this miracle of timing.”

Lewin’s college football experience has been with the Big Ten Network, as well as doing Conference USA games for the Sports USA Radio network. He is more known for his baseball work on radio and TV doing games for Baltimore (1995-96), Chicago Cubs (1997), Detroit (1998-2001) and Texas (2002-10). He also did Fox regional baseball from 1996-2011.

He also has done NHL work (with the Dallas Stars in 2003, plus Fox’s network coverage in 1998.)

“This might be embarrassing, but when I was about 6 or 7 and didn’t want to be a fireman or astronaut but knew I wanted to get into play-by-play, and UCLA was so great in basketball with Bill Walton and John Wooden, I pretended that I was ‘Josh Lewin, voice of the Bruins,’ because it rhymed so well,” Lewin said. “When I had an interview with (UCLA athletic director) Dan Guerrero, I said, ‘If my last name was McGillicutty or Schwartz, I might be doing something different.’”

Roth, who has known Lewin since doing Triple-A baseball games in Syracuse and Rochester, said they have recently talked and “I look forward to hearing him do games on UCLA – he’ll be great.”

Contact the writer: thomas.hoffarth@langnews.com