Free Press Picks Its Replacement For Mike Rosenberg

The Free Press has chosen longtime feature writer Jeff Seidel as its new sports columnist.

He will replace Mike Rosenberg, who joined Sports Illustrated earlier this month.

Free Press sports columnist is a high-profile position even in this day of the downward-spiraling newspaper industry.

“I'm blown away to get this job,” Seidel told Deadline Detroit.

“I never thought it would open up. It's the only job that I have ever wanted. Rosenberg left for SI, and my dream job opened up.”

Seidel is an award-winning* reporter joined the Free Press in 1999 as a general assignment reporter and features writer. He covered the war in Iraq, spent a year with an inner-city teacher (to highlight the problems in Detroit Public Schools), covered Hurricane Katrina and wild fires in the Upper Peninsula and spent several months in a Detroit fire station, riding the rigs after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

To highlight the lack of organ donation, Seidel followed young Kaden Coo as he waited months to get a new heart.

And he spent several months in the Detroit homicide bureau, riding with detectives, going to crime scenes and watching interrogations to show how murder touches city neighborhoods. Seidel also wrote a humor column for the paper.

There are no sports in that resume, but Seidel was a sports writer for the first decade of his career, writing for the Grand Rapids Press and the St. Paul (Minn.) Pioneer Press, for which he covered the Minnesota Vikings for two seasons.

Seidel, 45, grew up in Bay City and graduated from Grand Valley State University.

Why did he want the job?

“Because I love sports,” he said. “I love writing. And sports is the one thing that ties Detroit together. Black and white. Young and old. City and suburbs. I want to write about sports because people care so much about it. And because you can explore so many issues through sports writing.

*There are so many awards in the journalism industry that almost all journalists win awards. But Seidel is known as a very good writer.