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Mary Kay Cabot honored by Pro Football Hall of Fame as Bill Nunn Jr. Award winner
Mary Kay Cabot, a longtime Browns beat writer for the Cleveland Plain Dealer and will have a place in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Cabot has been named the 2025 Bill Nunn Jr. Award winner by the Professional Football Writers of America, the PFWA announced on Thursday, May 29. The award is given to a reporter who has made a long and distinguished contribution to pro football through coverage.
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A graduate of Lakewood High School and Kent State University, Cabot has covered the NFL since 1988.
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Mary Kay Cabot at the Cleveland Browns training facility in Berea, Ohio. Cabot is a longtime Browns beat writer for the Cleveland Plain Dealer and
Of the 57 Bill Nunn Jr. Award winners, Cabot is just the second woman. Charean Williams (Pro Football Talk) became the first in 2018. All recipients are commemorated on a plaque inside the Hall of Fame museum.
'I am truly overwhelmed and humbled to receive this prestigious award, and I can't thank my colleagues enough for recognizing my contribution to the game over all of these years,' Cabot said in a PFWA news release. 'I am especially grateful to be only the second female to win this award after the great Charean Williams, and I know there will be many more in the future. I hope I have at least in some small way helped blaze a trail for all of the fantastic women in the business today, and I am proud of all of their accomplishments.
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'I am also honored to join my late, dear friend Chuck Heaton (1980 Nunn honoree) as the only members of the Cleveland Plain Dealer to earn this distinction. Chuck taught me early on that everyone has a story, and to always do the job with integrity and kindness. Thanks to all who have come before me for all you've done for the game.'
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Cabot has been an at-large member of the Hall of Fame's selection committee for the past decade. She was voted the 2015 Ohio Sportswriter of the Year by the National Sports Media Association and the Ohio Associated Press Media Editors Sportswriter of the Year in 2024. She was inducted into the Cleveland Press Club Hall of Fame in 2022.
'Mary Kay Cabot is synonymous with Cleveland Browns news, and it's because she is a relentless reporter,' Akron Beacon Journal sports columnist Nate Ulrich said in the PFWA release. 'Among the countless examples of Mary Kay digging for a story is when former Browns quarterback Colt McCoy suffered a concussion in 2011.
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'The important insight Mary Kay gathered contributed to the NFL placing independent certified athletic trainers in press boxes and implementing a video system to monitor for potential concussions. Mary Kay is the epitome of a football writer who deserves to go from Cleveland to Canton.'
Cabot will be honored by the Hall of Fame at the Gold Jacket Dinner on Aug. 1 at the Canton Memorial Civic Center.
This article originally appeared on The Repository: Cleveland Browns beat writer Mary Kay Cabot wins Bill Nunn Jr. Award
