Announcing Greatness - Browns Daily Dose

ANNOUNCING GREATNESS

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the eighth in a series of stories about the Mount Rushmore-worthy people, places and things in Browns history. Today we look at radio and TV play-by-play announcers.

By STEVE KING

They stand on their own merit, and as such they stand very tall.

Indeed, just ask the Browns fans who have been listening to and, in some cases, watching them all these years.

But you don’t get a full appreciation of the Browns radio and TV play-by-play announcing greatness, until you hear other play-by-play announcers around the NFL. Few are really good. The majority are average or poor, with too many in the latter category.

But again, in the markets where those announcers work, the fans may like them. They would think differently, though, if they lived in the Cleveland market.

So, then, this is a story about the Mount Rushmore of Browns radio and TV play-by-play announcers. It is a grand list.

How grand?

Grand not just in excellence, but also in terms in length, for it extends for almost the entire length of the franchise.

The four announcers on this Mount Rushmore are, in chronological order, Ken Coleman (TV, 1954-67), Gib Shanley (radio, 1961-84), Nev Chandler (radio, 1985-93) and Jim Donovan (radio, 1999-present).

You know all of them – or at least most of them – already – and you know them well — but we’ll fill you in on them a little bit nontheless:

KEN COLEMAN

In the 1950s and for most of the ’60s before he moved back to his native New England to become the voice of the Boston Red Sox, he was The Guy in Cleveland when it came to sports announcers. With a strong, no-nonsense tone, he became the voice of reason. It was not a fact until Ken Coleman said so. He had that kind of power. Coleman, whose late son, Casey, served as the Browns radio play-by-play announcer for the final two seasons of the original franchise’s existence in Cleveland in 1994 and ’95, called the games on TV for the final 14 seasons in which individual teams handled their own telecasts.

GIB SHANLEY

A native of tiny Shadyside, Ohio in Belmont County, he worked in radio in Zanesville and Toledo before he was hired by Browns owner Art Modell shortly after he bought the club in 1961. Shanley was a master of setting for listeners an exact mental picture of what was going on, which was extremely important for home games, which for years were not televised in the Cleveland area because of the NFL’s blackout rules. He didn’t back down from criticizing the Browns when they deserved it, and had a dry, witty sense of humor which he used to do so. He might have been at his best in that exciting 1980 Kardiac Kids season.

NEV CHANDLER

Chandler’s style, especially with the preciseness of his calls, was a lot like that of Shanley because he listened to him – and greatly admired his work — while growing up in the Cleveland suburb of Rocky River. His calls during the Browns’ great run during the last half of the 1980s can still send chills down your spine. His death, of cancer, on Aug. 7, 1994, was one of the saddest days in Browns history.

JIM DONOVAN

Everybody remembers his “Run, William Run!” call of William Green’s 64-yard touchdown burst in the 2002 regular-season finale that helped put the Browns into the playoffs for the only time during the expansion era, but he has been consistently outstanding game in and game out for the last 21 seasons. He is as good as it gets, and as popular as it gets in a market. Like Coleman, he is a native New Englander who embraced Cleveland.

NEXT: Regular-season games from 1946-59.

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