His mother had gone to Lafayette High School with Hall of Fame pitcher Sandy Koufax and New York Mets owner Fred Wilpon. Through family and friends — connections— Magowitz often made it to Fire Island, N.Y., a summer playground for the rich and famous. It was there he discovered possibilities and set his sights high.

In 1983, following a three-year stint in the Marines, Magowitz, still in his early 20s, took a part time sales job for Mattress Discounters, a bedding chain with stores in Maryland, D.C., and Virginia. Four years later, by then a Vice President, he had an opportunity to buy the Virginia Beach outlets. Seizing the opportunity, the young entrepreneur leveraged his credit cards, obtained family loans and received favorable terms on inventory from the founders in order to close the deal.

As Magowitz recalled recently, it was touch and go in the early years, but his persistence and belief in his abilities ultimately paid off. In the ensuing years, Magowitz built his business into a multi-million dollar enterprise that spawned 34 stores under the Mattress Discounters and Metropolitan Mattress brands.

Today, having sold most of the stores to national chains, Magowitz maintains the Virginia Beach Mattress Discounters locations, stores that allow him to leverage a life’s worth of connections in an effort to conquer pancreatic cancer.

The Accidental Fundraiser

Magowitz never thought about pancreatic cancer until the day doctors diagnosed his mother, Seena, with the disease. Following her death in 2001, he established the Seena Magowitz Foundation, and in 2003, launched the Seena Magowitz Celebrity Golf Classic, an annual affair that supports pancreatic cancer research.

In 2009, the event raised more than $400,000 for TGen’s pancreatic cancer research initiatives led by Physician-In-Chief Dr. Daniel Von Hoff.

“If someone is going to break the code, to come up with the cure, I have to believe that Dr. Von Hoff will be right there in the thick of it,” said Magowitz, who today uses his industry-wide connections as a way to persuade others to join in his fundraising efforts.

Once again, his connections have paid off as the heads of some of the nation’s most prominent home furnishings companies have signed on. “We’re attracting a high-level group of individuals that otherwise would not have put any thought into pancreatic cancer.”

The tournament started out small, raising about $10,000 in 2002 when it was connected to another fundraiser, but grew to $50,000 in 2003 during the inaugural Classic held exclusively in honor of his mother.

And it hasn’t all been bright and sunny, though that is a draw of the event, held between Thanksgiving and Christmas each year on the first weekend in December. Magowitz has scheduled the 8th annual event for December 4.

Last year’s event sold out a month in advance, and many golfers had to be turned away. Much like his early days in the mattress business, Magowitz remembers the early years of the tournament, which he co-founded with business associate Ray Bojanowski, had it’s challenges as well.

It was so cold and rainy one year, they had to beg for tarps and heaters for the banquet tent. And there was so much rain, it leaked, dripping onto the huddled participants, including Dr. Von Hoff as he presented his annual research progress report.

“What was so great about that was, nobody cared,” said Magowitz. “Sure, they came to have a beautiful day in Arizona, but we just had a great time and a great day, and it was as if the sky were sunny and blue.”

A highlight of the 2009 Classic was a talk by Honorary Chairperson Jai Pausch, the widow of Randy Pausch, the late Carnegie Mellon computer-science professor who died of pancreatic cancer in 2008. His now famous The Last Lecture, about the importance of achieving childhood dreams, has been featured on PBS, and more than 11 million viewers have seen it on YouTube.

“She’s very poised, very passionate, and clearly carries Randy’s passion to find a cure for this disease,” said Magowitz, adding that Jai Pausch will return this year to the Classic in a key capacity. “The woman needs to get a lot of credit. She’s a single mother — a widow with three young children — trying to lead a normal life. Yet she still is in this whirlwind of pancreatic cancer, with its fundraising and initiatives and interviews. It has to be an enormous challenge.”

Magowitz said the annual event wouldn’t be possible without the volunteer support of Tournament Director Liz McBeth of Arlington, Va., his former Chief Financial Officer and family friend who he describes as “the backbone” of the Classic. Her duties include coordinating more than 300 people for dinner and more than 400 for lunch.

Going into its 8th year, the tournament has raised a total of more than $1.7 million, and should easily eclipse $2 million after this year’s event.

“In a sad sense, we know that a cure for pancreatic cancer is equated to money. It’s not going to happen by accident,’’ Magowitz said. “It’s going to happen through people like Dr. Von Hoff, his team in the lab, and his worldwide Pancreatic Cancer Research Team by developing new therapies; new drugs. That’s how it’s going to happen, and they need money for that. It becomes very difficult in today’s economy to get people to fund programs. But, knock on wood, so far every year we’ve been able to reach higher levels.”

Today, the kid from Brooklyn works harder than ever, but a life’s worth of connections and the determination to conquer pancreatic cancer makes each day worth the effort.