Did you know ? Before starting a brilliant career as a presenter on TF1, Denis Brogniart was a professor at the IPJ (Institut Pratique du Journalisme), an establishment that he himself attended and from which he graduated in 1993. A few years after the start of his career, the emblematic presenter of “Koh-Lanta” therefore taught in the school where he cut his teeth… just like Hervé Mathoux who also followed a course in this institute before come back to play teacher.
“Hello, here are the teachers who will teach you the sports journalism course this year. Hervé Mathoux, who you probably know because he covers football on Canal+, and Denis Brogniart, who works at TF1.” It is with this joyful phrase that the students of the class of 1999 who chose the sports journalism option were welcomed.
In 2024, 25 years later, Erwan Lemoine, a former student, testifies in the columns of Purepeople. “At the time, I often clowned around. During a lesson, I threw a valve on the curling machine. However, at the start of each session, a student had to make a presentation on a sport to present it to the others, by the way, it was smart of them to make the students work rather than prepare a lesson… Rest that Brogniart hadn’t missed me: ‘Okay, you’re going to tell us about curling, that will teach you how to open it…‘“I was less smart, but I told him ‘banco’. I racked my brains and found a member of the French team who explained everything to me. Brogniart was amazed, he thought I “I was going to chicken out. Years later, I saw him again, he hadn’t forgotten the anecdote. I remained ‘the curling guy…‘”
At the same time, the former director of the school, Catherine Lambret paints a glorious portrait of the animator. “When he joined the IPJ, he had just finished studying to become a sports teacher. He was sharp and intelligent, an excellent student who became an excellent journalist. But I remember that he was a born competitor, a winner. With him there was no room for losers…