Retired Senior Commonwealth Judge Emil Narick, a coal miner's son and University of Pittsburgh football star whose common-sense approach to law ended many labor disputes, died yesterday at the age of 90.

The Upper St. Clair resident had a long career in labor law and once nearly won the presidency of the United Steelworkers union. But he would gain his widest fame for cracking down on the bizarre tactics of the pro-labor group DMX in the mid-1980s. In the midst of it all, he officiated college football games.

"He was a people's judge," said state Supreme Court Justice Ralph J. Cappy, "He was first and foremost concerned with the law, but after what the law dictated, his heart went with the little guy."

He was born in West Virginia, his father a Croatian immigrant who worked in the coal mines while his mother ran a boarding house and raised five children. When he earned a football scholarship to the University of Pittsburgh, he wasn't only the first in his family but "the first kid from his high school to go to college," said his son, D. Kirk Narick of Downingtown, Chester County.

"He showed up at Pitt with one pair of shoes, two pairs of pants and two shirts."

He was a standout on a championship Pitt football team, playing the now-defunct position of "halfback passer."

Mr. Narick graduated in 1939 and, while working as a regional representative for Ford, met the love of his life, Rebecca Nay. After Pearl Harbor he enlisted in the Army Air Corps, and they married as he worked his way up the ranks to major. He was a flight instructor and later an inspector of bases in the South Pacific.

When he left the service in 1946, he turned down an offer to play for the Steelers and became an assistant football coach and full-time law student at West Virginia University.

From WVU he moved to the National Labor Relations Board, traveling the nation to mediate labor disputes. In 1958, he became assistant general counsel to the United Steelworkers of America. In 1969, he ran as a reform candidate for the union's presidency, losing by 10 percentage points.

In 1972, Mr. Narick became the first local director of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. He said in 1992 that the rights of minorities were always his top concern. "We are all human and equal. That has been a premise in my life," he said.

While at the EEOC, he also worked for a private law firm specializing in labor issues. He was often tapped him to resolve school strikes, where he had a gift for unlocking deadlocks. He held a variety of community positions, including trustee at Pitt and chairman of the Allegheny County Planning Commission.

"He always wanted to give back," his son said. "He could have made a lot more money in private practice than he ever made as a judge, but it was his way of giving back."

In 1977, Mr. Narick was elected to Allegheny County Common Pleas Court, where his first case involved a dispute between two neighbors over the felling of an apple tree. Then he became known for settling acrimonious school strikes.

"He was very fair. Perhaps it was because he had been a referee, so he was able to steer it right down the middle and call it as he saw them," said Common Pleas Judge Gene Strassburger, who served with him.

Mr. Narick began officiating college football games in 1950. At his very first game, he was knocked out by a right to the jaw from a player he had thrown out of the game.

"It's unfortunate, but it's one of the risks involved in being a football official. The boy had suffered a head injury, which made it difficult to control himself. Both he and the school apologized, and the matter was dropped," Mr. Narick said years later. He was required to stop officiating at age 60, but continued for years as a supervisor of referees.

He relentlessly maintained his football physique. Even in his retirement, his workouts at a Grant Street health club put men half his age to shame. His last workout was two weeks before his death. His trademark was a handshake that could knock recipients off their feet.

The case he said was his most difficult involved the Rev. D. Douglas Roth, a Lutheran pastor and member of DMX, which used disruptive tactics -- including throwing skunk oil into a children's Christmas party at a church -- to bring attention to the plight of unemployed steelworkers. When the local Lutheran bishop removed the Rev. Roth from his pulpit, he barricaded himself in his former church. Mr. Narick eventually jailed the Rev. Roth during a drawn-out court battle in which the judge's family received death threats.

"It reached the proportion where we had a county trooper living in our house and one across the street," his son said.

When he was required to retire from Common Pleas court in 1986, Mr. Narick became a senior judge in Commonwealth Court. The post allowed him more time to grow the famous tomatoes that he delivered to the mighty and the lowly on Grant Street.

"He wasn't just a gardener, he would compost all winter. There was hell to pay if you threw away a banana peel or coffee grounds," Kirk Narick said.

"The garden kept expanding, much to my mother's dismay. And the flower beds kept shrinking. That was the only conflict I ever saw between the two of them."

In the late 1980s, Mr. Narick went to the Judicial Inquiry and Review Board with a complaint that then state Supreme Court Justice Rolf Larsen was improperly trying to influence some of his cases. The board took no disciplinary action. But in 1993 Mr. Narick became a key witness in a corruption case that led to Justice Larsen's impeachment and removal.

"He was the type of person that, if you were in a room with him, you always knew he was in charge," said Dan Shuckers, who had known him since both were attorneys and is now prothonotary of Commonwealth Court.

"He would have been a wonderful congressman, union leader, corporate president, principal of a school. He just had a certain sense of command about him, a great sense of self-confidence. But at the same time, he was a very humble man."

All who knew him said he was devastated by the sudden death of his wife nine years ago. Rachel Stoltenberg went to work for him as a law clerk soon afterward and was moved by his grief.

"He was a true gentleman, probably one of the last," she said. "He respected people, respected their views."

In 2002 new age limits forced him to retire fully. But he continued to visit Grant Street and to attend court picnics, even as he developed symptoms of Alzheimer's disease.

"When you use the word 'judge,' it's an honor, it means someone who is going to judge other people," Mr. Shuckers said. "I can't think of anybody better to determine the credibility of people or to make a judgment as to the law. He was an excellent human being and an excellent judge."

In addition to his son, he is survived by a brother, George, of St. Clairsville, Ohio; and two grandchildren.

A memorial service will be held at 11 a.m. Friday in Westminster Presbyterian Church, Upper St. Clair. The family requests donations to either the Alzheimer's Association of Greater Pennsylvania, 100 W. Station Square, Suite 500. Pittsburgh, Pa., 15219 or the Forbes Health Foundation, 2570 Haymaker Road, Monroeville, Pa., 15146.