In memoriam Daniel Barclay
March
18, 1985 - April 19, 2007
"He gave more to the school than we were able to give
to him."
-Eric Hartwig, former principal of Menlo-Atherton High School
Daniel was an amazing young man with a wide variety of interests, running the gamut from politics and history to trivia and humor. Dan's thesis for his masters degree was a mathematical model for predicting the outcomes of U.S. elections. He first published his model in 2004; the model correctly predicted George Bush's re-election in 2004, a Democratic Party victory in the 2008 presidential election, re-election of that Democratic president in 2012, and a return to a Republican presidency in 2016. He used this model to place on-line bets on elections. He made thousands betting on the 2004 presidential election, some of which he used in 2006 to purchase futures in Hillary Clinton for President. Those futures quadrupled by the time of Dan's death.
During his last two years at MIT, Dan spent most of his spare time with the MIT Parliamentary Debate team, traveling to tournaments and preparing arguments. He was a nationally-ranked debater, was scheduled to compete in the 2007 National Debate Championships, and had previously been invited to the World Debate Tournament. Dan graduated from MIT with a bachelors in economics, and was only weeks away from receiving his masters degree in political science when he died. Dan had accepted a job with a Boston financial advising firm so he could remain in the Boston area with his friends after graduation.
He graduated from Menlo-Atherton High School in 2003, and was first in his class of 350 students. Dan got perfect scores on ten advanced placement tests, including four subjects where he didn’t even take the class. In 2002, Dan became one of only 300 high school students nationwide to qualify as a National AP Scholar while still a high school junior. Dan got a perfect score on the U.S. History SAT exam (high school exam) in the eighth grade.
Dan accomplished far more than pure academics. He was the anchor of M-A's Quiz Bowl team, which was undefeated for his entire four years. In his senior year he competed single-handedly in a match against the top four-person teams in northern California, and won every game, coming in first place in the tournament and qualifying for the national quiz bowl championship tournament. He became an Eagle Scout in 2001. In 2002, while still in high school, Dan published a paper in a national peer-reviewed journal with the results of research while working at a summer job at the U.S. Geological Survey. The paper was about seismic safety in public schools. By 2007, he had published three more papers.
Dan was modest about his intellect, and tempered his brains
with a wonderful, quirky sense of humor. He wrote many humorous articles, plays,
and debate topics for the MIT debate team. He also loved to “hack,” or
play practical jokes. He had written a screenplay and novel which were as
yet unpublished. He enjoyed hanging out with his friends, playing video
games, keeping up with politics and current events, and writing. There are
links below to many of the items he created.
Dan died when his small boat sank. He was following in the well-known MIT
tradition of "hacking" by doing something unexpected to bring a smile to
people's faces.
One of his hacks
is in the permanent collection of the MIT Museum. On April 8, 2007, Dan
decided to do a "hack" to publicize his
novel. He
set out to re-enact the opening scene of his novel, in which the intrepid
American Revolutionary War-era hero takes his one-man boat into Boston's Harbor
and single-handedly attacks and sinks a British warship. Dan was going to
hang a "fake bomb" sign on the USS Constitution, a Revolutionary War-era
warship, moored in Boston Harbor. Unfortunately, his boat got caught
by the wind and current and he was swept out to sea. The little boat couldn't
handle the waves and swells of the open ocean, and it capsized.
We have set up a memorial endowment for the MIT debate
team, and have installed a memorial bench
at
Menlo-Atherton High School,
where he and his friends used to stand at lunch every day. Dan was
survived by his parents, Sue Kayton and Michael Barclay, his sister Rachel
"Sam" Barclay, and three grandparents - Paula Kayton, Myron Kayton
(since deceased), and Eleanor
Barclay (since deceased).
A gathering in celebration of
Dan's life was held at Menlo-Atherton High School on Saturday June 2, 2007 in the San Francisco
area, and a memorial service was held at MIT in April 2007. You
can order DVDs with videos of both events, and a CD containing all the files on
this website. The
transcribed text, videos and photos from the June celebration are available
online, and so are the streaming video of the 30-minute MIT memorial service. If you don't already have RealPlayer installed on your computer,
you will need to install the latest version of RealPlayer
to view the MIT streaming video.
It is a tradition in
our family for new babies to be named for the recently departed. In
November 2008, a newborn cousin was named Danielle in his memory.
He did so much in so few years. We never will know what he would have
accomplished. We miss you, Dan.
You can read the new lyrics to the song Some Broken Hearts
Never Mend, by Michael and R. Sam Barclay,
written on the 8th anniversary of his death.
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You can read and share photos and memories of Dan
by posting them here.
There were many sides to Dan - check out some of the links below
Videos, photos and text from memorial service on June 2, 2007
Online photo collage - photos taken by debate team members from 2005-7
Older photos (very young) (elementary school) (middle school) (high school)
Photos taken on Quiz Kids grand prize trips ( UK trip summer 2002) ( Costa Rica trip summer 2003)
For those with access to Facebook, there is a group In Remembrance of Daniel Barclay.
Video of Dan's highlights on the TV show Quiz Kids. 3 minutes in length - turn the volume way up to hear the audio. The TV show dedicated its 2007-8 season to Dan - see the dedication graphic.
Photos of the varsity Quiz Kids teams and their perpetual trophy (scroll down)
Some of the debate cases he ran - some serious, some very off-the-wall
Video of a rap presented to the UBC debate team thanking them for a well-run tournament
Stata Center hack sign #1 (now part of the permanent collection of the MIT Museum)
Stata Center hack sign #2 (Posted after sign #1 was removed)
Stata Center hack sign #3 (as of April 18, 2007, this sign was still posted in the Stata Center)
If you want to see what the Stata Center looks like (so you can see why he was making fun of it), check out http://www.eecs.mit.edu/stata-link.html or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stata_Center.
Hack "official minutes" for a student association meeting where he went to ask for funding for MURJ, the MIT Undergraduate Research Journal
His unpublished action novel Agent of Freedom in PDF format. Subject to copyright protection but may be read and enjoyed for personal, noncommercial use without restriction. Or download the Word version.
Kumquat: A Play in Five Acts. Unfinished parody of Shakespeare, co-written with his sister Rachel. Starring Mustachio, Imbroglio, Portfolio, Hernia, and the lovely Anemia.
Fractured Fairy Tale written at an unknown date, probably while in high school.
Field Act report - first published paper, written for US Geological Survey, published in Seismological Research Letters
Email received May 2008 from researcher referencing the Field Act report
Cyclical Changes - fourth published paper, written for Michigan Journal of Political Science
Diary of trip to Spain in 1999
The Taming of the Shoe - written in 1995, Daniel's first send-up on Shakespeare
The Brave Fish, one of Dan's first stories, written in third grade, for an assignment explaining why a constellation is named for a person or an animal.
My Struggle - college application essay
The Week from Hell, an essay by the father of one of Dan's friends about Dan's death
His almost-finished thesis, a math model for predicting the outcomes of US presidential elections. Chapter 2, Chapter 3 with references. He was working on the introduction and Chapter one when he died.
Tongue-in-cheek Powerpoint presentation given to his thesis design class explaining his proposed thesis topic.
Newspaper articles - some are more accurate than others, so take them all with
the proverbial grain of salt.
A Shaded Spot Memorializes a Bright Student, M-A Bear News, March 15, 2014. (turn the volume way up to hear the audio)
Almanac News June 6, 2007, April 25, 2007
San Francisco Chronicle April 24, 2007
San Francisco Chronicle "Quiz Whiz Leaves No Gap Unturned" archived story from March 13, 2003
The Tech April 20, April 20 update, April 24 news article, April 24 obituary