Sports Counselor

My friend and old college roommate Kiljoong (he'll always be Killer to me) moved to Chicago from Seoul when he was thirteen, and he's been a Cubs fan ever since. Nowadays he's part of the sociology faculty at DePaul here in Chicago, and teaches a class called The Sociology of Sports. His story appears in Gene Wojciechowski's new book Cubs Nation: 162 Games. 162 Stories. 1 Addiction, which juxtaposes the games of the Cubs 2004 season with stories of their fans. Killer gets three pages, in which we learn that his sister still weeps at the mention of Leon Durham. He also tells the story of that infamous night in 2003 when the Cubs blew the National League Championship Series:

"I live up in Rogers Park," he says. "A half hour after the game [Game 7 at Wrigley], I was walking home near campus and this guy was sitting outside a bar, just totally devastated--you could just tell. He had a Cubs jersey and he was just completely out of it. So I put my hand on his shoulder and said, 'You know, next spring, we do this over again.'

"And he just started crying."

If you've ever been a fan of any sort, especially of a cursed losing team, this book is worth checking out. (It's also worthwhile if you're just a fan of Kiljoong.)