After a 52-year career in sports radio, in which he was always “with his eyes on the field and his heart in his listeners”, the free voice of Wbeimar Muñoz Ceballos closed a chapter in the media, in which he became a benchmark for journalism in Colombia and the continent.
Master Wbeimar, as his students and some colleagues call him, wanted this moment to be less noisy, but it was inevitable. Once his decision was known, the news spread like wildfire and messages abound on social networks that account for his career.
“Just as one day I came to this profession, I want to leave, in silence… God pay you for the interest, but I prefer it to be that way,” he responded to the request for an interview to share with the audience of this newspaper the reasons for his retirement, and evoke anecdotes in his unmistakable voice and style that reached millions of homes through his program “Wbeimar lo Dice” that was on the air for 45 years, his innumerable broadcasts alongside Jorge Eliécer Campuzano, Édgar Perea, Benjamín Cuello , Paisita Múnera Eastman, Jaime Ortiz, Óscar Rentería, Fabio Poveda, Javier Hernández, Javier Giraldo, among other narrators and commentators, and his latest interventions on the Win channel.
His thought, translated into letters, is also embodied in prologues and journalistic texts as part of a legacy that will surely grow because he says that apart from continuing to travel following visiting nearly 120 countries, he is already looking for options to continue studying and nurturing his knowledge. This permanent desire to learn has allowed Wbeimar to speak with authority regarding football and other sports, but also regarding art, culture, literature, music and politics.
The silence that he chose at this moment in his life contrasts with hundreds of recognitions, but not tributes, if you will, to fulfill another wish for Wbeimar, who assures that he does not like them, because he feels some superstition in them.
To learn more regarding the life and professional spirit of this man born 78 years ago in Seville, Valle, and declared an adoptive son of Antioquia, just listen to his colleagues and listeners who will be left orphaned by the concepts in which he delved into sports issues. . And to feel the firmness of his voice in the face of national events, as he did for so many years in the editorials, in which more than once he sang the table to the corrupt, but also praised good works and highlighted the achievements of the Colombians abroad in different fields.
forged a school
Guillermo León Zapata, communicator and professor, who was editor-in-chief of the Wbeimar lo Dice program, defines his former boss as one of the most complete journalists that communication has given in Colombia. “Although he was not trained in any university, it is as if he were. Reader and lover of universal and Latin American literature. With an excellent taste for good music and great voices, especially tangos. In football, he is studious like no other. He was trained in the Argentine and Spanish schools of tactics and strategy. For this reason he has the authority to comment on football matches ”.
He adds that in sports radio he has been a great innovator, accompanying his programs in different formats. “He likes research and he instilled it in all of us, which is why he won the King of Spain, Simón Bolívar and Postobón awards.”
He affirms that Wbeimar built a journalistic school for sports in the country, training dozens of reporters, commentators and editors. “Wbeimar is leaving the media, but he leaves this great legacy.”
From his human side, he highlights that he is always aware of people, “he is generous and understanding”.
In this facet, the narrator Jorge Eliécer Campuzano, with whom he has shared trips and work for many years, speaks of a man “infinitely generous in every way.”
Mauricio González, director and creator of the Gente Pasión y Fútbol program, who began in the profession alongside Wbeimar, assures that this “is one of the few eminent sports journalism” that he has known in his three decades of career. He values “his professional quality, his study and depth”.
He is grateful for the fortune of learning from him, listening to him and observing him carefully: “He is capable of speaking one-on-one regarding history and general culture with anyone. A man who was not dizzy by the cult of personality, as has happened with others, a professional who has left an enormous mark… People are going to miss him, because today, when journalism has become a show , the quality of high-level professionals from Wbeimar Muñoz is truly needed”.
has been inspiration
Camilo Andrés Botero, another of his advanced students with whom he worked on professional soccer broadcasts in Medellín, grew up listening to Muñoz Ceballos. She remembers that when she left school she was desperately looking for her radio to tune in to Radio Reloj at 830 AM: “He was my traveling companion on my way home, I didn’t talk to anyone, I listened to his reflections, his comments and I laughed at his jokes”.
That influence led him to the classroom, he wanted to be like him and managed to work by his side. “For me he is not a teacher, he is and will be a father to me, honest, sensitive, best friend.”
The controversial Iván Mejía wrote on his twitter account that the retirement of the teacher Wbeimar Muñoz is the goodbye of a great emblem of the profession. “Serious, respectful, studious, without knee pads and flattery, Wbeimar dignified sports commentary. It doesn’t hurt, I applaud his determination. Outside there is another life”.
Despite the absence from radio and television, Wbeimar’s tall, slim figure, decked out in good suits, will remain strong. The occasion, and he knows it as a good journalist, deserved a review, a recognition of the work that gave luster to the profession. So “Mijito” -a word that he coined among those close to him-, far from the bustle of the media, travel, learning and rest await him, following spending so many years “with his eyes on the field and his heart on the listeners”.
A “DEVOURER” OF BOOKS
Jorge Eliécer Campuzano traveled with Wbeimar to broadcast matches and in those adventures he discovered other benefits in him: “I have never seen anyone so dedicated to his profession, dedicated to reading and preparing, he is almost a scientist in what he does.” Campuzano recounts that once in Chile they stayed at the Carrera Hotel, where they shared a room. At midnight he woke up and didn’t see him in bed, he went to the bathroom and noticed the light on. Worried regarding knowing if he was sick, he knocked on the door and he authorized him to open it: Wbeimar was sitting on the toilet, devoted to reading, one of his greatest pleasures. He had gone there so as not to bother him with the light. “For many years he dedicated himself to cultivating himself to reach the top of the commentators in Colombia -says Campuzano- and he succeeded. His departure from the media leaves a huge void.” Hernán Peláez and Iván Mejía included him in the “Generation of ’71” (for the Pan American Games in Cali), when we began to be known along with Javier Giraldo Neira, Édgar Perea, Jorge E. Campuzano, Óscar Rentería, Mario Alfonso Escobar, Javier Hernández , Fabio Poveda, Jaime Ortiz, Óscar Restrepo, Armando Moncada and Carlos Antonio Vélez.
HELPED UNDERSTAND THE GAME
The lawyer and DIM fan, Rubén Darío Barrientos, highlights the contribution that Wbeimar gave to his audiences. In a column published in Cásulas de Carreño, he praises this learning: “He had the hallmark of being a commentator who, through words, helped to understand the game and always professed great respect for his listeners.”
He adds that hearing him give his opinion “is learning, it is drawing the strategy of a technician and it is reflecting what is happening on the field, without paying a ticket… A technician at the microphone.”
He warns that this man, who in his beginnings was a broadcaster and narrator, trained abroad in a show of generosity with his listeners and achieved “an authorized and pedagogical concept, not for vainglory, but as a duty.”
In his account, he tells that in 1962, following a robbery, Wbeimar “suffered throat damage” and for this reason “he landed in sports commentary.” And he reviews another health episode that happened to him in 2006 due to some aneurysms. Revealing that Muñoz Ceballos wanted to be a lawyer, a singer of lyrical music and settle in Paris, he concludes that “he has in his magin the history of football and the city, of culture, of zarzuela, of the musical wave, of things interesting”.
