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Jim Donovan to retire from WKYC

Jim deserves to call it a career at WKYC. He has been there for almost four decades, and has been a constant fixture on the evening newscasts since 1986, after joining as weekend sports anchor the year before.

He will still call the Browns games for the team on its radio network.
 
And don't be shocked if during the season, he pops in on channel 3 once or twice a week to be the resident Browns analyst/expert.
Unless 5, 8 or 19 tries to claim him off waivers, which I doubt he would stoop to that level. Almost forty years at three, he clearly should have "permanent open door" status on Tom Beres Way.

Which bring up the question. Will he get a street, sports desk, or something else named for him at the station?
 
The next would be who would succeed Jim as Sports Director and 7pm co-anchor.
I could see something where Jay Crawford does the 6p sports (he of 20 years at ESPN), and longtime weekend guy Nick Camino does the 11p sports, leaving longtime #3 man/fill-in Al Pawlowski for weekends.

This way at 6p, you have all the "Super Friends" on one show - Russ Mitchell, Christi Paul, and Jay Crawford, all with their well documented national pedigrees (CBS, CNN, and ESPN respectively), along with chief meteorologist (and outside of Hollie Strano the one who now has the most station seniority) Betsy Kling.

As far as the 7p news goes - assuming she's staying - we have Laura Caso who's already there, and it would probably be easiest to just have her 4p co-anchor (Matt Rascon) join her there as well.

This way, no one guy has to be JD's replacement, as being the one who replaces a legend is a hard spot to be in
 
Bernie Kosar, Doug Dieken, Romona Robinson, Sarah Shookman, Tom Beres, Mark Nolan, Chuck Galeti, Mary Kay Cabot, and many more.
Factoring in his time as a regional NFL announcer for NBC from 1987-1997 (when he called a good number of Browns games), and being the radio voice of the team since 1999, Jim Donovan has seen 16 head coaches (13 fulltime and 3 interim) and 48 starting quarterbacks come and go.

He started with Schottenheimer-Kosar, is currently on Stefanski-Watson and God knows how many combos in between.

And that's just on the football side...Lord knows how many news anchors and weather forecasters he seen come and go at the desk next to him in the 38 years (1986-2024) he was the weeknight sports anchor/sports director

Both JD and Doug Dieken deserve a special place in Heaven for seeing so much bad football up close in any lifetime.
 
And don't be shocked if during the season, he pops in on channel 3 once or twice a week to be the resident Browns analyst/expert.
Seems like a no-brainer to have him come in on the day after a game during the season for analysis with Mary Kay Cabot, assuming he would be interested in doing so.
 
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