The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Tuesday, September 29, 2015 — 7A
One Hundred Twenty-Fifth Anniversary

1977

Diver Christina 
Seufert earns the 


individual national 

championship.

Former Michigan player Jim 
Harbaugh returns as the head coach 
of the football team.

1948

Men’s ice 

hockey wins its 


championship.

1973


hockey begins as 
the first female 

sport.

1989

The men’s 
basketball 

team wins its 

championship.

1972 

The passage of Title IX 
begins a new chapter, 
as women’s sports are 

introduced.

2015

2001
The field hockey team 
women’s national title.

Rosenberg reflects on lessons learned at Daily

By MAX BULTMAN

Daily Sports Editor

Last spring, on a particularly 

late night at the Daily, the Sept. 
12, 1994 sports section of The 
Michigan Daily was sitting on 
the table in the center in the 
conference room. Surrounded by 
bound volumes on the shelves, 
and a few on the table, the 
standalone issue stood out.

It was the oldest issue of 

the Daily the current editorial 
staff had ever seen that wasn’t 
contained by a bound volume 
or framed on the wall. But more 
thrillingly, it included a column 
from Michael Rosenberg — the 
1995 editor in chief of the Daily, 
now a senior writer at Sports 
Illustrated — on the front of the 
sports page.

Today, 
Rosenberg 
is 
one 

of the most prominent sports 
writers in the country. He has 
written for some of the top 
papers in the country, including 
The Washington Post, Chicago 
Tribune, Detroit Free Press, 
The 
Philadelphia 
Inquirer 

and The Sacramento Bee. His 
work was featured in the 2005 
edition of “The Best American 
Sports Writing,” and he has been 
featured in the Associated Press 
Sports Editors top 10 column-

writing awards multiple times.

It was especially exciting, 

then, that on the front of the 
sports page from that issue was 
an especially moving feature by 
Rosenberg 
on 
then-Michigan 

receiver Walter Smith.

Rosenberg has written several 

phenomenal stories throughout 
his 
career, 
but 
there 
was 

something about Smith’s that 
made it especially poignant.

Smith injured his knee before 

his senior season, and Rosenberg 
set out to tell his story — a 
gripping, emotional tale about 
the life he had moved away from 
but had irreversibly shaped him. 
The following passage captures 
its essence:

“ ‘I cried before every game 

last year,’ Smith says, ‘because I 
thought we were going to lose.’ 
He does not cry when his friends 
are killed. He cries when his 
football team loses, or might lose. 
People usually cry when a friend 
dies partly because it is a shock. 
When Smith’s friends die it is 
not a shock. It literally happens 
about as often as his football 
team loses.”

Rosenberg had to treat this 

story with immense care in order 
to be fair to Smith, just one of 
many traits that make his work 
so respected.

So when the Daily caught 

up 
with 
Rosenberg 
before 

Michigan’s 2015 season-opening 
football game at Utah, we asked 
about the story — in writing it, 
Rosenberg exemplified one of 
the most important lessons he 
learned during his time at the 
Daily.

“It’s not just getting your 

facts right,” Rosenberg said, “but 
(that) you’re taking the proper 
care.”

The Smith story had such 

sensitive subject matter — about 
Smith’s upbringing in Detroit 
and his resulting distrust of 
people — that it was especially 
important to be careful and 
courteous.

The Daily reached out to 

Smith to talk about the story. 
All these years later, he still has 
a copy of the piece, titled, “Self-
made man,” but he had no idea 
Rosenberg was now working at 
Sports Illustrated.

Asked what Rosenberg did 

to make him feel comfortable 
sharing such a vulnerable story, 
Smith talked about how relatable 
and understanding Rosenberg 
was with him. At the time of 
the piece, Smith had injured 
his ACL and was reeling from 
the realization he couldn’t play 
football. But Rosenberg still 

managed to connect with him, 
showing empathy and treating 
his life story with care.

“He made me feel like I wasn’t 

hurt,” Smith said. “That’s an art.”

The Daily strives to foster the 

growth of exemplary journalists 
like Rosenberg. And in order 
to grow, making mistakes is 
inevitable. Rosenberg learned 
that lesson at 420 Maynard St., 
too.

Back in 1992, New York 

Yankee 
legend 
Derek 
Jeter 

briefly attended the University. 
Back then, Jeter was just a draft 
pick out of Kalamazoo Central 
High School. He wasn’t playing 
for the Michigan baseball team, 
so he was, for all intents and 
purposes, a regular student. 
Rosenberg decided to write a 
story on him, setting up what 
became 
an 
embarrassing 

learning experience.

“I did a story on (Jeter), and 

for some reason, and to this day 
I have no idea why, I mentioned 
he played football, which he 
didn’t do,” Rosenberg said. “I 
must have, I don’t know, but 
I’m assuming I heard it from 
somebody in the newsroom, and 
being a freshman in college, I 
just didn’t check it. It wasn’t 
like I could Google it at the time 
because there was no Google. 

It’s my fault, it’s my story, but 
it’s not like I came up with it on 
my own.

“I just didn’t know what I was 

doing. I was literally 17.”

Jeter and Rosenberg ran into 

each other a few times upon 
Jeter’s trips back to campus. 
Jeter was always friendly, saying 
hello and not mentioning the 
error. Of course, that wasn’t the 
end of it.

“I found out years later that 

he was pissed about the story, 
cause his friends were giving 
him shit about it in Kalamazoo,” 
Rosenberg said. “And he should 
have been pissed! It was wrong!”

Fellow 
Daily 
alum 
Ken 

Davidoff, 
now 
a 
baseball 

columnist for the New York 
Post, eventually clued Rosenberg 
in to his mistake, leaving him 
mortified, but allowing him to 
make good on it.

After 
a 
couple 
years 
— 

Rosenberg 
doesn’t 
remember 

exactly when, only that Nick 
Swisher was on the Yankees at 
the time — he paid a visit to the 
Yankee captain at a Detroit Tigers 
game.

“I went into the Yankees 

dugout, before a Tigers game, 
of course he remembers me,” 
Rosenberg said. “He might have 
forgotten me if I had gotten the 

story right, but it’s years later, 
and I hadn’t talked to him since 
I’d heard that. And I said, ‘I just 
wanted to say I’m sorry.’ And he 
was entertained. He was like, 
‘This guy said I played football!’ ”

A friendly observer to the 

situation, 
Davidoff 
eventually 

asked Jeter about it.

Asked about the error, Jeter 

said, “It’s not the first time 
someone wrote something wrong 
about me,” to which Davidoff 
replied, “Actually, I think it was!”

In journalism, as in any field, 

errors shape a writer as much — if 
not more — than their successes. 
And while Rosenberg was already 
an established columnist by the 
time he found out about his Jeter 
mistake, he still counts it among 
the various ways the Daily helped 
him to grow.

“You just learn,” he said.
It was at the University and at 

the Daily that Rosenberg learned 
some of the most important 
lessons for a young journalist.

“Just because a story is accurate 

doesn’t mean it’s fair — especially 
if it’s their personal life,” he said. 
“If you catch a coach breaking a 
rule, that’s fair game. If a coach’s 
wife has cancer, and doesn’t want 
you to know it, it doesn’t matter if 
you know it. That’s their life. It’s 
just a story to you.”

Schefter’s career began 
with Daily experience

By MAX COHEN

Managing Sports Editor

Before he was one of the 

nation’s most prominent NFL 
reporters, Adam Schefter was 
a freshman at the University of 
Michigan looking for something 
to do with his time.

First, he tried to rush a 

fraternity, but that didn’t work 
out. Then he went to the football 
offices, looking to help out, but 
they didn’t have a job for him. 
He went to the basketball team’s 
office for the same reason, and 
they didn’t have anything for him 
to do, either.

It took three misses, but 

Schefter 
eventually 
found 

something to pour himself into: 
The Michigan Daily. It changed 
his life.

“I was always very curious 

about newspapers,” Schefter said 
in a phone interview. “I loved 
sports growing up, and that kind 
of combined two interests when I 
had no other opportunities. And it 
just led to, honestly, just a thought. 
I never, never, never imagined that 
it would turn into my vocation.”

Schefter, now an ESPN NFL 

Insider who appears on a variety 
of NFL shows on the network, 
in 
addition 
to 
frequently 

contributing to ESPN.com and 
ESPN Radio, arrived at the Daily 

as a timid freshman, one who 
was still finding his way. But 
eventually, he found a passion. 
By the time Schefter graduated 
from the University in 1989, 
he had served as the paper’s 
managing 
sports 
editor 
and 

covered Michigan hockey, men’s 
basketball and football for the 
Daily.

“It 
was 
something 
that 

captivated me and interested me 
and motivated me,” Schefter said. 
“I loved it. I was drawn to it.”

An airport conversation during 

what Schefter believes was his 
junior year helped solidify his 
career path.

He was waiting for a flight 

to cover a Michigan men’s 
basketball game in Minnesota 
when he approached Detroit 
Free Press sports writer Thomas 
George, who was on the same 
flight. In their conversation and 
the ones that followed, George 
helped convince Schefter that 
sports journalism was actually a 
viable career path.

“To me, that was something 

that was unattainable, something 
that somebody else did, not me,” 
Schefter said. “The more I talked 
to him, the more I thought, ‘Wow, 
maybe I can try this.’ ”

And 
Schefter 
did. 
After 

graduating from the University, 
Schefter earned a master’s degree 

at 
Northwestern 
University’s 

Medill School of Journalism 
before starting a newspaper 
career. He worked for the Seattle 
Post-Intelligencer, 
the 
Rocky 

Mountain News and the Denver 
Post before transitioning into 
television.

He considers the Daily to be the 

launching pad of his career, a place 
where he was able to learn about 
himself and his future profession.

“If I didn’t go to the Daily, 

I wouldn’t have done this,” 
Schefter said. “It set me on a path 
to doing what I am doing today.”

One of the experiences that 

stands out most to Schefter 
from 
his 
Daily 
career 
was 

the 
opportunity 
to 
cover 

legendary Michigan coach Bo 
Schembechler in his penultimate 
season, Schefter’s senior year.

Schembechler 
held 
court 

at Weber’s Inn in Ann Arbor 
every Monday, and Schefter 
never missed a single one. He 
loved listening to the coaching 
icon and learning from his 
experiences.

“I’d go and I’d have my best 

meal of the week, lunch on 
Monday, Weber’s Inn, and I’d get 
to listen to Bo Schembechler,” 
Schefter said. “What was better 
than that? Getting a free meal 
and getting to listen to Bo? It 
didn’t get better than that.”

1997
The Michigan football 
team wins the national 
championship.

TODD NEEDLE/Daily

SAM WOLSON/Daily