ORCHARD PARK, NY (WKBW) — 40-years ago next month a former Buffalo radio disc jockey set a world record by sitting in more than 80,000 seats at the Buffalo Bills stadium.
It was May of 1982 radio DJ Tony Magoo broke the world record during his “Seat-Sit” at the home of the Bills known then as Rich Stadium.
Magoo was 31-years old at the time working as a weekend announcer at WPHD-FM radio known today as 103.3 The Edge
In five days Magoo 'slid his bottom' along approximately 32-miles of aluminum benches.
He joked with former Channel 7 News Reporter Don Pollack about how he trained for his “Seat-Sit”.
“I spent a lot of time looking for quarters underneath pews in church for a couple of weeks,” Magoo joked while gliding over each stadium seat.
“You hit more than 80,000?” Buckley asked.
“The seat count was different than it is now out at the stadium. It was officially 80,020 — I did 80,019 and they presented me with the last seat out there at the Amherst Marriott,” replied Magoo.
Magoo says the American Cancer Society contacted the station asking if they could break the previous “Seat-Sit” record of 75,000 stadium seats at the Denver stadium.
“What do you remember of that time?" Buckley questioned.
“My fondest memory was that I had a really cool support team there. There were so many people just trying to help me get that done. This was a hell of a feat,” reflected Magoo. “People hearing it on the radio and driving by Bills stadium and laying on the horn — they knew I was in there that was really cool too."
Magoo, now 72, is a Western New York native and still working as a radio announcer, but from his home studio in Jackson, Mississippi.
Magoo says the only thing he needed to do was “touch” each stadium seat.
Some challenged him about not sitting in the suite seats at the time.
But Magoo says the world record did not include suite seats, because they are private seating.
“So what I did was I repeated seats in the stadium to equal the number of seats in those suites at that time,” Magoo explained.
Magoo says he is still a big Bills fan.
“You see what I’ve got on here,” Magoo pulling at his number 12 Buffalo Bills jersey, former Quarterback Jim Kelly’s number. “I’m totally excited about what's going with the Bills — and with the new stadium.”
Magoo says he also managed to convert his wife, born and raised in Mississippi and a New Orleans Saints fan to like the Bills.
“She knows who's throwing the football for the Buffalo Bills these days and she goes — ‘he's cute’”, laughed Magoo.
Magoo recalls that while trying to set his world record Buffalo Bill Shane Nelson, who played with the team from 1977 to 1982, reached out to him asking if he was okay.
“He came out on the second day and he said ‘how are you doing?’ I said my knees are not holding up well. He said ‘come with me’ and he took me in the training room and stand in those big ice buckets until I couldn't stand it longer,” Magoo recalled.
Magoo says at the time, he ended up raising about $10,000 for cancer research.
“Here's the irony — since then I have had cancer twice. I was living in Detroit in '03 and survived stage four head and neck cancer — I’m a walking talking miracle,” declared Magoo.
Magoo says he also had lung cancer in 2014.
“I’m going to suggest anybody who sees this — what they do is pick up the phone and call the American Cancer Society,” Magoo noted.
You can call 1-800-227-2345 or go online to cancer.org.
