Trump hired him as a bodyguard after seeing him tackle a heckler

Calamari playing gold at the Trump National Golf Club Westchester in 2012. Bobby Bank/Getty Images

Calamari initially didn't want to go into security services. As a student at the New York Institute of Technology in Old Westbury, he was a linebacker on the football team. He had dreams of playing football professionally, he told Bloomberg in 2015.

A knee injury put an end to that and Calamari found himself working in security. At the 1981 US Open, a pair of hecklers interrupted the game between Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova. He decisively handled it.

"I took one guy immediately right down," he told Bloomberg. Then he tackled another heckler: "I ran right at him, I picked him up, I slammed him to the ground, I carried him down."

Trump and his wife at the time, Ivana, were impressed, he told Bloomberg. Trump hired him as a personal bodyguard, and he's risen the ranks ever since, a hardcore Trump loyalist.

"I love the guy," Calamari told Bloomberg. "My thing is, I’ve always promised I would, knock on wood, never let anything happen to him."

Now Calamari is the Chief Operating Officer of Trump's business empire, according to his LinkedIn profile. In his role, he oversees building management, construction, and insurance, he told Bloomberg.

"He promotes you until you fail," he said. "There are no boundaries."