Jim Donovan has been fighting leukemia for a long time. Now, he is preparing to ramp up the fight again. He told the WKYC audience that his cancer has relapsed.
“There’s a story to the new look and hairstyle that I’m sporting here tonight,” he said on Channel 3, where he is the sports anchor, on Wednesday. “It was about a year and a half ago that I noticed that something was amiss with my health. And if you’ve known me and if you’ve followed me through the years here at Channel 3 and with the Cleveland Browns, you know that I’ve had a long battle with leukemia to the point where I had a bone marrow transplant about 11 and a half years ago. Well, my concerns were confirmed, and by that I mean it was told to me that I had had a relapse of leukemia, the disease had come back.”
He said that after a number of chemotherapy treatments, it is time for a new treatment plan. This time, things will be more aggressive. Donovan says his plan is to keep working.
“Through all of this, I will be here at Channel 3 and on the radio as much as I can be, but there will be periods of time that I might not be with you, maybe for a day, maybe for longer,” he said.
The Cleveland Browns expressed their support and concerns for Donovan in a Twitter post. The team’s statement says that the broadcaster has already proved “he’s as tough as they come” through his previous battle with the disease.
Other members of the Cleveland sports media took to social media to express their support for Donovan.
Jim Donovan has been the play-by-play voice of the Browns since the team returned to the NFL in the 1999 season. He was initially diagnosed with leukemia in 2000 and had a bone marrow transplant in 2011.
Everyone at BSM joins Donovan’s sports media colleagues in wishing him a speedy recovery.
