He’s the entire 9 yards.
Lengthy Island’s Wealthy “Massive Daddy” Salgado is the Batman behind the scenes of the NFL — an influence dealer getting issues performed for “1000’s” of athletes who belief the insurance coverage guru to do what cash can’t together with his undisputed affect.
“I don’t even work at it — it’s simply one thing easy. It’s a telephone name,” the 60-year-old New Hyde Park native informed The Submit throughout his busy season of a chaotic NFL free company.
Since 30, he been the go-to for making certain numerous insurance policies for particular person gamers, just like the Tremendous Bowl XLII-winning Giants line of defense, managing contracts for complete groups, and even caring for NFL insiders like Adam Schefter business-wise.
That’s solely a part of how Salgado turned one of many league’s most influential people with out an official capability contained in the NFL.
Salgado makes use of his huge community as a fixer for anybody who wants something — whether or not it’s an introduction to enterprise alternatives or hand-delivering post-practice pizza Fridays to the Giants — by turning on a larger-than-life attraction that received over Pete Hegseth and had Salgado brush shoulders with President Trump.
“There’s extra to it that I can’t get into,” he stated with amusing of the presidential encounter.
Salgado’s consistency and humility has him on velocity dial within the sports activities world for requests each large and small. Titans head coach Robert Saleh known as him throughout an interview with The Submit Friday for some trend recommendation.
“I all the time say, ‘I’m not making an attempt to to get rich off you,’” stated Salgado, who additionally has large NHL identify shoppers like Rangers Mika Zibanejad, new Los Angeles King Artemi Panarin, and two-time Stanley Cup champion Sergei Bobrovsky of the Panthers.
“What you see is what you get with me.”
What individuals see is a 6-foot-4 light large with customized go well with jackets which have “Massive Daddy” stitched on the labels and a well-recognized face who’s put in sweat fairness at stadiums and arenas because the Nineteen Nineties.
He was shortly trusted and favored by inside circles to the purpose that folks mistook him for Mario Lemieux’s bodyguard.
“I’d go to Monday Night time Soccer video games, Tuesday hockey video games, Wednesday hockey video games, Thursday hockey video games,” he stated.
“Fridays, I’d go to a school sport, Saturday, I’d be at a school sport. Sunday, I’m at an NFL sport. Then we begin throughout,” stated Salgado, who has attended 26 Tremendous Bowls and 10 Stanley Cup finals.
Slice of life man
Salgado’s winningest drive got here whereas working alongside the Giants through the 2011-12 season, when he routinely ran pizza from Umberto’s of New Hyde Park to New Jersey for Friday apply — on the request of Eli Manning’s immovable offensive line.
“I used to be doing in all probability 80 miles an hour coming off the New Jersey Turnpike. I get pulled over, and I’m driving a Mercedes on the time,” Salgado recalled.
“The police officer goes, ‘The place are you in a rush to?’ And I stated, ‘Effectively, I’m a supply man’…I popped the trunk and confirmed him 30 pizzas and stated it was for the O-line, and he let me go.”
Salgado’s pizza parlor trick turned such an essential ritual to the G-Males that he had over a dozen Umberto’s pies flown to Indianapolis for the workforce’s Tremendous Bowl XLVI rematch victory over the New England Patriots.
He’s additionally crossed paths with Tom Brady’s father, Thomas Sr., an insurance coverage hotshot in California.
“The joke he all the time stated to me was ‘Simply bear in mind one factor, Massive Daddy: I’m the true Tom Brady.”
And sure, Salgado is understood “95% as Massive Daddy and perhaps 5% Wealthy” professionally.
Rookie 12 months
Earlier than breaking into the enterprise, Salgado performed offensive line for Rutgers Cup-winning New Hyde Park Excessive Faculty and later suited up for the College of Maryland, the place he earned his nickname within the 80s.
He labored odd jobs after graduating.
“I did plenty of stuff. I bounced the golf equipment, I bartended, I even did telemarketing for a minute,” he stated.
“On the finish of school, truly, I used to be promoting substitute home windows, and I used to be going door to door and making an attempt to make gross sales…there was nothing that was too large or too little for me to do.”
Salgado, whose brother Jim coaches the Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns, finally went company and received into the sports activities crowd due to some shut associates from school ball — and the remainder was historical past.
He simply began the sports activities phase on Newsmax and now makes use of his affect off the sphere by proudly representing the Tunnel To Towers Basis.
Salgado hosts its annual Massive Daddy Superstar Golf Traditional at Oheka Fort on Lengthy Island this June 29.
The previous bruiser additionally lately orchestrated a deal between the group and Lengthy Island-based Arizona Iced Tea for a one-of-a-kind collaboration chocolate egg cream soda can.
Nassau County Government Bruce Blakeman acknowledged Salgado in 2023 by formally crowning March 7 “Massive Daddy Day” within the 516 — and Michael Strahan got here out to have a good time.
By all of it, he maintains he’s simply one other man from the island.
“I’m not a celeb,” Salgado stated. “I’m an insurance coverage individual.”
