On Sunday, the Cleveland Browns will induct two new members into their ‘Legends’ group: former kicker Phil Dawson and legendary radio announcer Jim Donovan.
And with all due respect to Dawson, there’s little debate regarding who the headliner of this year’s class is.
Donovan’s latest distinction comes less than one month after he announced his retirement from the Browns’ radio booth, where he had served as the franchise’s radio voice since its return to the NFL in 1999. The Boston native missed a portion of the 2023 season while battling Leukemia and announced in August that his fight with cancer required him to retire as a broadcaster.
“Phil, that is unbelievable,” Donovan said during a call with Dawson in which the former Pro Bowl kicker informed him of the honor, per the team’s official website. “That is so great. That is a great honor. What an honor to go in at all, but to go in with you, wow.”
“To be able to go into the class with Jim, it’s a guy I know,” Dawson told reporters on Thursday. “It’s a guy I have a relationship with. It’s a guy that I look up to. And so, it just adds an extra layer to this. It would be awesome to go in with anyone, but a guy that you came in together with, a guy that you consider a friend, a guy that you appreciate, a guy you respect, a guy that you benefit from what he did.
“He was so supportive of me through the years and was always so kind to myself and my family. I mean, to get to go in with a friend just adds this really special layer to it and reflects what I’m most grateful for in my time in Cleveland is, and it’s the relationships that I had with the people at Cleveland. And Jim is towards the top of that list.”
Donovan’s retirement from Browns broadcasts came two months after he retired from NBC affiliate WKYC, where he had been one of the faces of the station since the mid-1980s. The 68-year-old was first diagnosed with Leukemia in 2000 and underwent a bone marrow transplant in the summer of 2011 before suffering a relapse in early 2023.
Both Donovan and Dawson will be honored on Sunday when the Browns host the New York Giants at Huntington Bank Field.
About Ben Axelrod
Ben Axelrod is a veteran of the sports media landscape, having most recently worked for NBC's Cleveland affiliate, WKYC. Prior to his time in Cleveland, he covered Ohio State football and the Big Ten for outlets including Cox Media Group, Bleacher Report, Scout and Rivals.