CLEVELAND -- On Thursday night, WKYC Sports Anchor Jim Donovan will be honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 16th annual Greater Cleveland Sports Awards at the Cleveland Renaissance Hotel Grand Ballroom downtown.
While the Lifetime Achievement Award is an individual honor, Donovan has always enjoyed being part of a team, but no team is more important to him than that of his family, including his wife, Cheryl, and daughter, Meghan.
Cheryl and Meghan provided countless hours of support, both physically and emotionally, during Donovan’s decade-long battle with leukemia that resulted in a bone-marrow transplant in the summer of 2011.
“We did it together,” Donovan said in an exclusive interview. “There were a lot of really tough moments, but Cheryl was just amazing. Everybody needs an advocate when you’re doing that because there are certain things that you don’t want to hear and you don’t hear. You really don’t physically hear things, so you need somebody there with you and she was there.”
According to Donovan, Cheryl fulfilled several roles as he was battling his way through the bone-marrow transplant and subsequent recovery process. And even before the transplant, Meghan would help Cheryl in getting Jim to and from appointments with the doctor.
“She was a coach, she was a teammate, she was a great wife,” Donovan said. “It was just unbelievable. There were a lot of things that she had to do. She had to keep our life going at home, and I was stuck in a hospital for a long period of time. It was just amazing. She was absolutely just a real rock, and it was a tough thing for Meghan to go through.
“She battled with us through it because there was a lot before the transplant. There were a lot of years of treatment and chemo, and before the decision was made that, ‘Hey, the chemo’s not working like we want it to and so, now, you have to have a bone marrow transplant.’
“There were a lot of weeks of feeling awful when you would go through the treatment. Meghan would come and pick me up a lot from chemo, and you have to go through it together. We don’t have a big family, but the three of us really banded together and got through the whole thing.”
EXTENDING THE FAMILY
Although it was always Jim, Cheryl and Meghan, the Donovan family unofficially grew by one in the fall of 2013, when they welcomed his bone marrow donor, Dallas Gentry, to Cleveland for Thanksgiving.
A native of Wyse, Virginia, which is located along the Kentucky and Tennessee borders, Gentry made a decision to register as a donor when he was just 19 years old, and 17 years later, he received the call to make a life-saving donation.
Gentry was a perfect 10-point match to Donovan, but because of sleep apnea, he had be treated at a hospital at Vanderbilt University in Nashville with medication for five days, which caused pain in every bone that has ever been broken. Despite the discomfort in his collarbone, shoulder and back and a bad reaction to the pain-relief medication, Gentry elected to go through with the procedure, which gave Donovan a second chance at life.
“The year deadline came and we definitely wanted to meet the donor, and we weren’t hearing back,” Donovan said. “There’s nothing you can do about it. It’s optional and it’s volunteer, and then, finally, we did. At first, it was just a voice on the phone, and that was incredible. It really was incredible. He was a perfect match. He was a 10 out of 10 perfect match.
“When he came for Thanksgiving a couple of years ago, when we finally decided that we would really get together, it was the most incredible holiday that you could ever have. It really is a holiday when somebody like that walks into your life and they gave you the thing that kept you alive.”
GETTING BACK TO FOOTBALL FAMILY
Gentry gave Donovan the gift of life and the impending Browns season gave him cause to push through any obstacle associated with the transplant and subsequent treatments in order to broadcast the team’s home opener in 2011 against the Cincinnati Bengals.
“When I went in to have the transplant, I was really lost,” Donovan recalled. “I didn’t know what was ahead for me from one day to the next. You have a lot of time on your hands, so I said to myself in the hospital, I was sitting there, ‘I would really like to get ready to do the first Browns game,’ realizing the preseason was out of the question. I remember talking to my doctors, and I saw them every day. They said, ‘Kind of a longshot, but you should have goals, and if you really think you can do it, that would be an incredible thing to pull off.’
“There were a lot of obstacles. There were times where I would be feeling okay, and then, suddenly, something would come up and I’d take a few steps back. I realized it was kind of getting down to crunch time, and I watched the Browns in the preseason. I just knew the weeks were really going by quickly, and people just kept saying to me, ‘Do you think you’re going to have the stamina and the energy to be able to do the game?’ I had really done nothing, but I was very excited and I said, ‘Oh yeah. I’ll be ready to go.’
“I was, but when I did the game, as soon as the game was over, I was a wet dishrag. I had no energy left, but I felt like I didn’t have a bone marrow transplant. I just felt great up in the booth. For three-and-a-half hours, it just took my mind off of everything I had gone through and everything I still had in front of me to get totally better, and it was just great.”
Although the Browns not only lost that opener, but also, 11 other games during the season, returning to the booth and having Meghan occasionally serve as a spotter for him during the games served as a form of emotional therapy for Donovan and his family.
“Because there’s such a routine you get in to get ready for the game and study for the game and put everything together for the game, and then, you go to the game and do the game, it really takes your mind and you have to be focused to do it, no matter what your physical state is,” Donovan said. “It was great. It was really great, and I really feel that I had a lot of people pulling for me. Everybody was really happy, but nobody was happier than me.”
REUNITING WITH A FRIEND
Donovan’s return to the Browns’ radio booth represented getting back to a sense of normalcy, but also, was a chance to reunite with his broadcast partner, Doug Dieken, who is more than a coworker. To Donovan, Dieken is a close friend who is someone anyone would be lucky to have as part of their support system.
“It has been the greatest relationship that I think you could ever imagine having,” Donovan said. “We are like best friends, and it was like that way from the time we were finally put together. I auditioned with three or four different people, and there were many auditions. There were many rounds of auditions, and the combination was never Doug and I.
“There were a lot of other people that wanted the job. I had known Doug before when he retired and he had gotten into doing the Browns games, and I knew him from being around the Cleveland sports scene. I always thought we’d be a good pair together, so I was a little surprised when we weren’t put together.
“Then, we were finally put together, it’s just been great. It’s just like two really good friends sitting, watching the game and just talking about it. I would do anything for him, and he has done everything for me, so I don’t think you could have a better situation up in a booth or anywhere else.”
COMING FULL CIRCLE
Now, nearly five years removed from the bone marrow transplant, Donovan has more than reclaimed his spot in the Cleveland sports scene. And for that, the WKYC Sports Anchor and “Voice of the Browns” who grew up idolizing Boston sportscasting legends will be honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award in his adopted hometown of Cleveland.
“When you come from out of town and you come into a city, sometimes, you only think you’re going to be there a couple of years at best, and so, to be here 31 years and have everything that’s happened to me here in Cleveland, it’s just really amazing,” Donovan said.
