FRANKENMUTH, MI — Hugh Bernreuter may not read this story.
The Saginaw News/MLive sports reporter has spent more than 40 years writing the book of the region’s athletes and games. It’s a position that places him behind a spotlight he directs and focuses.
His work back there has earned him a spot in the 2023 class of Saginaw County Sports Hall of Fame inductees and, for once, on the illuminated end of the spotlight.
“It’s a little uncomfortable,” Bernreuter said of the recognition. “We were taught in college, ‘The reporter should never be part of the story because, if you’re part of the story, it changes the story.’”
He said the Saginaw County Sports Hall of Fame recognition provided a reminder of how the stories he’s told became such an important part of his own tale.
“I feel extremely fortunate and blessed that I’ve been able to do this job,” he said. “I enjoy it because every day is different, and — I don’t know — maybe that makes me feel young.”
Now 60, Bernreuter spent his youngest days growing up on a farm in Gera, an unincorporated community in rural Frankenmuth Township. There, his own sports story began.
“You were always around sports,” he said of farm life in Gera. “You were always reading about sports. When The Saginaw News came at 3 o’clock, we would run to get the newspaper to read the sports section. Someone would ask you, ‘Who was the league leader in batting average,’ and you would know because you read all the stats and all the box scores.”
All that knowledge developed into such a love for sports for Bernreuter that, when he was a freshman enrolled in a Delta College mass media class, his professor knew to recommend Bernreuter for a part-time job involving the subject. One of The Saginaw News reporters he read growing up — Jim Buckley — was seeking a college student to answer Friday night calls from local coaches relaying their teams’ scores for the Saturday morning edition.
At the age of 18, in 1981, Bernreuter worked his first shift for The Saginaw News.
He was hooked.
“I remember going home that night at like 2 or 3 in the morning, walking into my parents’ bedroom, waking them up and telling them, ‘Well, I think I found what I want to do for the rest of my life,’” he said. “And, basically, I’ve been doing it for 40-some years.”
Bernreuter over time graduated from answering phones to writing stories. His byline appeared in The Saginaw News for the first time in a 1982 article about a boys’ basketball game between SS. Peter & Paul and St. Mary’s Cathedral high schools.
“St. Mary’s won, giving Norwaine Reed his first win over St. Pete’s,” Bernreuter said. “My memory is of the post-game interviews. Reed was a perfectionist and was tough to interview after a win. (Leo) ‘Smokey’ Boyd was just as difficult to interview after a loss. Combine the two, and the next 40 years of interviews were a breeze.”
After also working on the student newspapers at Delta College and Michigan State University, Bernreuter was hired full-time at The Saginaw News in 1986. It was the same year one of his favorite reporter experiences put him in a room with one of the greatest professional athletes in modern history.
“(Muhammad) Ali visited Alma to promote Golden Gloves and stayed in a hotel in St. Louis, where I met him,” Bernreuter said. “He would not talk to me unless I accepted his autograph, which is a no-no for reporters. When he gave it to me, I took the piece of paper and put it in my pocket. After breakfast, he talked and performed a few tricks, like levitating off the floor. When I got home, I looked at the paper.”
It was a pamphlet extoling the virtues of Islam, Bernreuter said.
Many of Bernreuter’s subjects, though, were not internationally-known sports figures. A few were high school coaches and teenage athletes whose sports feats sometimes transformed them into local folk heroes in the pages of The Saginaw News and, later, in the displays at the Saginaw County Sports Hall of Fame.
In fact, Bernreuter has written about most — if not all — of the Saginaw County Sports Hall of Fame inductees whose careers did not predate his start at The Saginaw News.
“It’s an absolute blur,” he said of his journalism career so far. “I’ve seen so many incredible players and talked to so many incredible coaches. I get asked, ‘Which one stands out,’ and there’s just so many. I’ve been very lucky.”
Some of his highlights include covering Super Bowl XL at Ford Field in 2006; meeting Detroit Tigers sports icons he idolized growing up, including former radio broadcaster, Paul Carey, and then-retired pitcher, Mark “The Bird” Fidrych; traveling to Madison Square Garden in 1992 to report on the first-round playoff series between the Detroit Pistons and New York Knicks; and following the state championship runs of the 1991 Arthur Hill High School football team, the 1996 Saginaw High School boys basketball roster and the 1999 Saginaw High football squad.
Bernreuter’s sports reporting career highlights also intersected many times with his alma mater, Michigan State. He covered the Arthur Hill High School basketball career of Jason Richardson, a fellow Spartan and member of the 2023 Saginaw County Sports Hall of Fame class.
The job continues to fulfill Bernreuter, he said, even as he enjoys life away from reporting. Known by many by his sports-page moniker, “The Mad Bavarian,” Bernreuter today resides not too far from the Frankenmuth Township community where he first began reading box scores in The Saginaw News. He lives with his wife, Michele, whom he married in 1987. They raised three sons who are now adults: Hogan, Colin and Hunter.
Bernreuter said there are more sports stories for him to write. Retirement is not in his plans — at least not for the next few chapters of his own story.
“I’m a farm boy from Gera, and I went to a Super Bowl,” Bernreuter said. “Are you kidding me? This is all still unfathomable to me. Don’t tell anyone, but I would’ve done it for free.”
The Saginaw County Sports Hall of Fame induction banquet is 4 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 5, at Horizons Conference Center, 6200 State in Saginaw Township. Tickets are $60 and available on the Saginaw County Sports Hall of Fame website.
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