WDR director Tom Buhrow paid tribute to the long-standing “Sportschau” moderator: “We sadly say goodbye to Ernst Huberty. When “Mr. Sportschau”, as the audience affectionately called him, he was the first moderator to have a decisive influence on this program: pleasantly calm and with great seriousness. Ernst Huberty will always be remembered not only as the moderator of the “Sportschau”, but also as a sports reporter legend .”
On June 4, 1961, Ernst Huberty moderated the very first “Sportschau”. He commented on the so-called game of the century, Germany against Italy at the 1970 World Cup semifinals in Mexico, or the legendary water fight in Frankfurt at the 1974 World Cup.
If “Tagesschau” spokesman Karl-Heinz Köpcke (1922-1991) was the one who freed the German news from the barking commiss tone of the Nazi era, then Ernst Huberty did just that for sports reporting. His commentary style was calm and reserved, even in highly emotional moments. Significantly, his most famous reporter words are “Schnellinger of all people”. That was in 1970, when Karl-Heinz Schnellinger scored the equalizer in the 90th minute of the World Cup semi-final against Italy – he of all people, who had been playing in Italy for years. Huberty didn’t shout that out. He just said it.
Huberty was born on February 22, 1927 in Trier. After working as a moderator at Südwestfunk Baden-Baden, he came to WDR in 1957 and became a member of the editorial team for “Here and Today”. Three years later he switched to the sports department and moderated the “Sportschau” from 1961 to 1982. In 1970 he also took over the management of the sports department. Later he also coached younger colleagues such as Reinhold Beckmann and Monica Lierhaus.
Oliver Welke described an almost unbelievable event in a WDR homage to Huberty’s ninetieth: “I once had a coaching appointment with him and he was a little bit late, which is very unusual because Ernst Huberty is always super punctual. Me I noticed that the room suddenly smelled a bit of smoke. And then he said in his perfect way that he had to apologize, he smelled a bit of smoke, his house had burned down yesterday.” Together with his wife Inge he was just able to save himself. But of course that was no reason for him to cancel the appointment.
Huberty was asked in 2017 in the WDR film by today’s “Sportschau” boss Steffen Simon whether he was afraid of death. “Not really,” was the laconic reply. Perhaps, thanks to modern medicine, he will live a little longer. “We’ll see.” Then correcting himself: “I don’t. You’ll see.”