Jim Donovan grew up in the Boston area aspiring to be a hockey play-by-play announcer. It turned out that calling games at the NHL level of the sport he most loved as a kid was one of the few things he didn’t accomplish in his long and illustrious career.

After radio stints in Minnesota and Vermont out of Boston University, Jim accepted a weekend sports anchor role at WKYC Channel 3 in 1985. Within weeks he was calling Cleveland Browns preseason games for the station. Those relationships would last more than 39 years and establish Jim as one of the most recognizable and trusted voices in Cleveland sports.

When the Browns came back as an expansion franchise in 1999, Jim was named its radio play-by-play announcer. He was known ever since as the Voice of the Browns, a role he cherished as the “crown jewel” of his career. His signature calls have been rebroadcast over countless national media platforms and have been ingrained in the minds of Browns fans of all generations.

All the while, Jim’s television career extended to anchoring the Channel 3 sports segments on daily news programs and eventually anchoring the station’s 7 p.m. news. Jim also enjoyed an 11-year run at NBC Sports from 1987 to 1997. He was tabbed by the network to call play-by-play on NFL games and also to call swimming, water polo, soccer and baseball in Olympics Games in 1992 and 1996, and the 1994 World Cup.

Jim has earned multiple local Emmy Awards and has been inducted in the Cleveland Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame (2005) and the Cleveland Press Club Journalism Hall of Fame (2009). He was honored with the Cleveland Sports Awards Lifetime Achievement Award in 2016. Jim, 67, retired from WKYC in June but will continue as radio Voice of the Browns.

He said his career goal now is to call the Browns winning the Super Bowl.