After a few stints in development coaching with Sydney before becoming Melbourne's forwards coach under Paul Roos, McPherson is now the Demons' football operations manager.

Ganmain-Grong Grong-Matong's best and fairest medal is named in honour of McPherson, who is a Sydney Swans life member after playing 111 games for the club from 1994 to 2003.

McPherson won back-to-back Riverina League premierships with the Lions in 1991-92, and won their best in fairest in 1993 before joining the Swans.

He's best known as 'Frosty', partly due to his hair during his playing days, but also the composure which undoubtedly serves him well as a Demons administrator.

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"He was only a pretty young fella when he played in those (1991-92) premiership sides, then not long after that he moved to Sydney," former Lions president John Steele said.

"He played his senior and junior footy at Ganmain and they drafted him out of there. It was back in the good old days when you didn't have to go anywhere.

"He was always a footy head, whatever he turned his hand to he was going to be successful. He's always been cool, calm and collected.

"Dan's called 'Frosty' because he had snowy hair, but also he was just so cool in a crisis and had time with the footy.

"He was just a farm kid with his head screwed on right."

McPherson was Essendon's NSW recruitment coordinator before cutting his teeth as a coach in the Swans' lower grades.

He was the Demons' forward coach from the 2014 season before entering administration when current coach Simon Goodwin took over from Roos in 2017.

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