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RIP Dan McQuade
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Dan McQuade, our friend and colleague, died this week at the age of 43. He is survived by his wife and young son.
At the end of 2024, Dan was diagnosed with neuroendocrine cancer. The news of his diagnosis hit all of us hard, but Dan never lost his enthusiasm or his spirit. Some of us have worked with Dan for nearly a decade, and all of us have come to know him not just as a coworker, but as a great friend.
Dan wrote at length about his diagnosis in September of 2025, noting at the time that his son was a toddler, which sucks immensely. He was denied the opportunity to see his kid grow up, and spent the last 18 months going through a battery of tests and treatments that involved everything from surgery and needles to radionuclide therapy. It’s worth a read to understand just how much he was dealing with.
What’s undeniable is that Dan was one of Philadelphia’s most talented and creative writers going back almost 20 years. He had this knack for taking the region’s many quirks and idiosyncrasies and bringing them to life in a way that felt so accessible considering the esoteric nature of the topics. He would go down to the Wildwood boardwalk and catalogue all of the ridiculous shirts for sale, or chronicle the demise of the Neshaminy Mall and memorialize the Center City Applebee’s. I remember this outrageous piece he did for Philly Mag when he mapped out the Rocky montage run from the second film and realized that it spanned 30 miles across the city.
Who thinks of that shit? Dan McQuade. He had such an interesting and curious mind, an innate gift for turning the most random things into engaging reads.
Dan was a Penn grad who freelanced early in his career for Sports Illustrated, Village Voice, Comcast.net, New York Magazine, and the aforementioned Philly Mag. He joined Deadspin in 2017 and was part of the staff exodus that resulted in Defector’s formation. His work there touched national topics, not just Philly, and intertwined sports and news, plus assorted randomness, like a four-person roundtable on the absurdity of Eurovision. One day, he’d be writing about Donald Trump’s visit to the Feasterville McDonald’s (Dan was a far Northeast guy), and then he’d come back the next day with a writeup about the 1988 Eagles doing a Buddy Ryan rap song. His whimsical ability to pull the most unusual stuff out of the bag was second to none.
It’s no surprise that McQuade came from a journalism background. His dad, Drew, was assistant sports editor at the Daily News for more than three decades and spent the 12 years prior with the Bucks County Courier Times, writing about the Eagles and laying out the paper. Dan got an English degree after graduating from Holy Ghost Prep and parlayed that into a successful journalism career that ended prematurely.
He was a nice guy, easy going with a great sense of humor.
RIP.
Kevin has been writing about Philadelphia sports since 2009. He spent seven years in the CBS 3 sports department and started with the Union during the team's 2010 inaugural season. He went to the academic powerhouses of Boyertown High School and West Virginia University. email - k.kinkead@sportradar.com