When Richard “Big Daddy” Salgado told people how much he wanted to raise at the second annual Big Daddy Celebrity Golf Classic few people thought he would get anywhere close.
“I told everybody I wanted to raise $1.5 million. They told me I was crazy,” Salgado said.
Salgado, the New Hyde Park insurance agent to sports stars, did not hit the $1.5 million mark at last week’s event at the Cold Spring Harbor Country Club.
But he came very close with more than $1.1 million raised – a large jump from the $100,000 the event raised for North Shore-LIJ’s Brain Aneurysm Center at Cushing Neuroscience Institute last year.
Salgado was aided in his fundraising efforts by a roster of sports celebrities including Salgado’s friend Michael Strahan, the former New York Giants defensive lineman and current talk show host, current Giants star lineman Justin Tuck, former major league ballplayers Fred McGriff and Gary Sheffield, new Brooklyn Nets Coach Jason Kidd and former heavy weight boxing champion Mike Tyson.
Corporate sponsors included Avion Tequila, Bud Light, Delta, RXR Realty, and the Hain Celestial Group.
RXR CEO Scott Rechler and Strahan were honored for their charity efforts at the event, which Salgado said drew 1,000 people.
“We had big celebrities. We worked on it all year long,” Salgado said. “I had a whole who’s who there.”
This year Salgado set up the Big Daddy Foundation and in addition to North Shore-LIJ, money from the golf classic is also going to support the Long Island Children’s Museum, an idea Salgado said Rechler suggested to him.
Salgado was inspired to create the fundraiser after he underwent surgery for a brain aneurysm in September of 2008 at North Shore-LIJ’s Brain Aneurysm Center.
“I’m proud that I’m able to raise this amount of money. I’m proud of raising awareness,” Salgado said. “I saw other patients with the same condition I had. I felt I wanted to give back.”
It’s not the first time “Big Daddy” has come up with a plan to support worthy causes.
Salgado connected Tuck, who is one of his football clients, and New Hyde Park restaurateur Umberto Corteo, resulting in a $25,000 donation from Umberto’s Ristorante and Pizzeria to donate to Tuck’s R.U.S.H. for Literary charity over the last two years.
“Big Daddy” had introduced the Giants to Umberto’s pizza and the New Hyde Park restaurant regularly delivered assorted pizzas to the team’s practices for their Friday midday meals over the past several years. Included was a trip to Indianapolis prior to the Giants victory over the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl in February 2012.
He also created the New Hyde Park Gridiron Fund last year with other former football players at New Hyde Park Memorial High School, kicking in $500 as their initial contribution for practice equipment to help the current generation of New Hyde Park Memorial Gladiators. The Gridiron Fund has a goal of replacing the football field at the high school with a turf field, a project he estimates at $50,000.
“We’re working on it. They understand how horrible the field is there,” he said.
Salgado played for the 1984 Gladiator team that went 9-0 to win the Rutgers Cup trophy as the top team in Nassau County in his senior year. Salgado was an offensive and defensive lineman and earned a football scholarship to the University of Maryland – one of six Gladiators to earn scholarships.
He had a good run at Maryland too, but a pro football career didn’t happen for him. A recreation major at Maryland, he initially wanted to get involved in corporate fitness. But he said he “never landed” in that career. Instead he took the suggestion of an old friend to get into the insurance business, and he hasn’t looked back.
“I have relationships with people. I’m in business with insurance and sports. I have that gift of having relationships with people at all levels,” Salgado said.
His business, Coastal Advisors LLC is growing, with his younger brother, Louis, recently joined him. And he’s expecting his Big Daddy Foundation to keep growing.
“I see this whole thing going on a national level,” he said.
Salgado is a partner with former New York Rangers Peter and Chris Ferraro on a $15 million hockey rink complex to be completed in Eisenhower Park this fall.
The 85,000-square foot complex, to be named the Ferraro Brothers Ice Center at Twin Rinks in Eisenhower Park, will contain two National Hockey League-sized skating rinks intended for use by youth leagues.
Salgado sees it as a big draw to keep promising young hockey players on Long Island for a chance to be scouted at the new facility.
“There’s not enough ice on Long Island. This will be one of the biggest, baddest arenas in the U.S.,” Salgado said after the ground-breaking last January.
In a gesture consistent with his love of hockey, Salgado made a connection between Irwin Simon, Hains Celestial CEO, and Salgado’s client Billy Jaffe for Hains Celestial to sponsor a bon voyage dinner for USA Maccabi team on Tuesday before it departed for Israel for the upcoming Maccabiah Games at Umberto’s.
