In every light romantic comedy there’s a cute young couple and maybe a sports reference, like this one involving the Chicago Bears.
And on rare occasions in romantic comedies, some crusty-but-benign newspaper guy with a gravelly voice introduces the couple.
So meet Calvin and Abby, two young people in love.
Calvin Casper, of Westmont, and his girlfriend Abby Radasevich, of Naperville, are seniors at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Abby just loves the Bears and reading about the Bears and watching the Bears. But the thing is, Abby had never been to a Bears game.
Calvin has been to Bears games. His grandfather has season tickets. So Calvin mentioned to Abby that before they returned to Champaign, he’d take her to a Bears game, an exhibition game.
“I was like, ‘Sorry, what did you just say?’ ” said Abby. “Because I had never been to a Bears game and I’m a very avid fan and so is he.”
There’s nothing like pleasing your girlfriend when you’re in love. And Calvin had a great plan except for one thing:
Grandpa had already given the tickets to someone else. So Calvin did what most millennials do.
He turned to his computer, went on Craigslist, where everything is for sale for the right price, and trusted complete strangers with his money.
The tickets he found on Craigslist would cost him about $400, higher than the list price, a lot of money for anybody, let alone college students.
$400 for an exhibition game? This guy must be in love.
But he wanted to please her. Calvin arranged with the seller to meet on the day of the game versus the Miami Dolphins, Aug. 13.
He met the seller in the Loop, in broad daylight.
“He seemed like a legitimate person,” Calvin said. “The tickets didn’t look that great, but he looked legitimate. He came out of an office building that he was working in. He was dressed in, like, a full suit. He was going all out on this.”
So was Calvin.
Cut to: Soldier Field. Abby and Calvin are wearing Bears jerseys, excited, happy, walking with the surging crowd of Bears fans.
But you can’t have a romantic comedy without something bad happening that will test their commitment. And here it is.
Calvin’s $400 tickets were completely bogus.
“We get to the (Soldier Field) gate and Calvin was actually in front of me and the tickets weren’t scanning,” Abby recalled the other day. “The woman at the gate was very nice. She was just explaining that the tickets were invalid.”
They tried a different scanner, but it still didn’t work. Poor Calvin. Poor Abby.
“I kind of looked back at her in disbelief and I was just speechless,” said Calvin. “My jaw dropped. I just couldn’t believe it.”
“That was when it all kind of came crashing down,” said Abby. “We we’d made it all the way down to Soldier Field, excited and in our Bear jerseys and ready … and we were told the tickets were fake.”
Calvin and Abby stood off to the side, watching all the other Bears fans rushing in to their seats, thinking their bitter thoughts of regret.
In romantic comedies, the ticket takers are kindly. And they were kindly in this one, too. So they ran the problem up the chain of command. And a kindly manager approached them.
This wasn’t any manager. This was the boss, Tim LeFevour, the general manager of Soldier Field.
Calvin and Abby didn’t know who LeFevour was. He told them to call police, but then gave them a long look.
“He asked us if this was a big night out, and Calvin then told him that it was my first Bears game,” Abby said. “And I could see the look on his face change.”
LeFevour excused himself for a moment, disappearing into the stadium, and Abby and Calvin chatted about where to get dinner.
Then LeFevour returned. You can guess what happened next.
“He looked me in the eye and said, ‘Do you like this guy?’ And I said, ‘A lot. We just started dating.’ And that’s when he pulled the tickets out and said, ‘You guys look like good kids. I want you to enjoy your first Bears game. Here are my seats to tonight’s game.’ “
They were beautiful, official looking Bears tickets, not that garbage from the Craigslist scammer. And they were great seats, too.
“We were absolutely speechless. … He didn’t know who we were. … He didn’t have to do that. I had no idea what to say,” Abby said.
But they did thank him. And Abby and Calvin wanted to thank him some more. Her father, Rudy Radasevich, sent an email to tell me about it. And I wanted to tell you their story.
LeFevour said he just hates Craigslist, “because 99 percent of the time it’s going to be a scam. People get their hearts broken.”
But Abby and Calvin didn’t have their hearts broken, because of LeFevour.
“There are good people out there, and if it’s the right person, then I’ll say, I’m gonna make their night and give them something special,” LeFevour said.
Now don’t go asking Tim LeFevour for tickets or calling him to scam the guy with your own tales of woe.
But he must like romantic comedies, too.
So this one time, he looked into the eyes of a young couple in love, and he knew what he was seeing:
Bears fans for life.
Good job, Tim. Good job.
Twitter @John_Kass
