McLean has been a regular at Panthers games for years
The South Florida sports scene has been in a frenzy like never before.
Both the Florida Panthers and Miami Heat are playing in the finals at the same time, a ridiculous feat that few regions have the opportunity to enjoy.
At the same time, the Marlins are in a playoff spot, the Dolphins are viewed as a potential Super Bowl contender, and, oh yeah…Lionel Messi is coming to Inter Miami.
South Florida has never had this much simultaneous sports awesomeness in the same decade, let alone the same week!
A man who many local sports fans have gotten to know quite well over the years has been enjoying it as much as any of them.
At Heat games, you know him as Uptown Dale, entertaining and interacting with fans on the court and in the stands every night.
At Panthers games, he’s one of the many diehard Cats fans, often seen sitting behind the goal on the shoot twice end of the ice.
‘Uptown’ Dale McLean has been an in-arena host for the Heat since 2006, though back then he was better known as the Mayor of Uptown.
McLean’s roots as not only a South Florida sports host, but as a fan, run quite deep.
McLean attended the University of Miami where he was part of the cheerleading squad before starting as a dancer and in-arena host for the WNBA’s Miami Sol all the way back in 2000. He stayed with the team until it folded following the 2002 season.
Remaining a huge Heat fan, McLean eventually got the call from the team regarding a possible hosting gig, and he jumped on it.
The rest, as they say, is history, as McLean has become a staple of any Heat game and an integral part of the team’s excellent in-area entertainment.
When he’s not doing his thing at the Heat’s house in Downtown Miami, McLean has spent much of his time working with children.
He’s currently one of the directors of Camp Kadima at the David Posnack JCC in Davie, where he also coaches soccer. In addition, McLean volunteers at the Maccabi Games, which take place every summer in a different U.S. city. South Florida is hosting this summer for the first time since 2015.
Overall, McLean has been working with South Florida’s youth for over 20 years. It’s something that means a lot to the Jamaica native, and something he is just as passionate about as he is for the Heat and Panthers.
The University of Miami alum also hosts Hurricanes football and basketball games.
“It’s always continuous movement, like where can I be for the next two or three days, and you just keep moving,” he said. “And that’s how I do it.”
That’s the mindset that has kept McLean going strong over the past several months.
As the Panthers and Heat have embarked on their improbable and incredible runs to the respective championship series, like so many other local sports fans, McLean has been there every step of the way.
“Thankfully the NBA and NHL got it right,” he said, referencing the staggered scheduling that has kept South Florida’s teams playing on different nights for the majority of the playoffs.
It’s allowed the local fans to live and die with their teams on what has felt like every night of the week.
For those of us going to the rinks and arenas each and every day, it can be the best kind of exhausting.
“It’s very tiring to be supporting both,” McLean said with a laugh. “I think I’m out of gas at this point in time.”
It’s understandable.
When speaking with The Hockey News, McLean was getting ready to head to Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Final.
It was his fourth game in four nights after working two NBA Finals games and attending Game 3 of the NHL title series.
“I joke with my friends that ESPN should do a 30 for 30 on the Panthers and Heat runs,” he said. “That doesn’t happen very often. To have both teams at the top of your game, both eight seeds working your way up, beating the top seeds time and time again to get to this point. It’s amazing.”
His favorite Panthers players are Givani Smith and Anthony Duclair, and while his reasons are ones that probably won’t surprise you, there is more to it than just what’s on the surface.
“Not just because of the obvious reasons, but of course because of the obvious reasons,” McLean said. “You don’t see many minorities in hockey, so when you see someone out there doing it that kind of looks like you, you tend to gravitate towards that and wonder how they got to this point.”
McLean can relate to that experience of forging a new path, and not only because he’s a person of color. He’s also the first male host in Miami Heat history.
“It may not sound grand, and I didn’t change the world or anything, but I take pride in that,” he said. “So I understand them trailblazing in the fact that, here they are, minorities in a sport that normally a lot of kids don’t see, and I’ve seen a change in the fanbase of the Panthers because of that. Over the years, there were only like one of two minorities at a game, and you could pick them out of the crowd. Now it’s like an integrated group of people coming to hockey games.”
The three have traded social media posts and DMs, following one another’s work with a growing mutual respect and appreciation for what each was trying to do in their respective areas of expertise.
“We're not the best of friends, but we understand each other and respect each other's role in what we're doing in sports,” McLean said.
When at the rink cheering on the Cats, he’ll often be seen wearing either his Peter Worrell jersey, his Pavel Bure sweater or the custom one that says ‘Uptown Dale’ on the back, but the fashion savvy Heat host has got a plethora of Panthers threads he likes to bust out for games at FLA Live Arena.
He’s surely hoping, like so many others, to have one more Panthers game to attend this season.
While yes, the past couple months have been a marathon of amazing sports moments, there is certainly room for one more week of cheering and hoping, even if it means a few more gray hairs for some of us.
“There’s no time off for the mental part of it,” he said. “If you’re a diehard fan, and you’re supporting, you’re in it. it's one of those things where you're going to have the highest of highs and maybe the lowest of lows, and then come back up to the highest highs and the low lows. It’s just mentally…you're always on.”