Kid Skips School See The Cubs With ‘Don’t Tell My Principal’ Sign, Promptly Runs Into His Principal

Wrigley Field Chicago Cubs

Shutterstock / Kathryn Seckman Kirsch


In Ferris Bueller’s Day Off one of the legendary shenanigans that Ferris, Cameron, and Sloane got into was going to see the Cubs play at Wrigley Field and catching a ball in the stands. Principal Ed Rooney in the film (played by Jeffrey Jones) is hot on their heels but he manages to miss the few seconds Ferris is shown on TV catching the ball during their epic day across the city. This kid is NO Ferris Bueller.

Tucker Steckman is a fourth grader at Wells Elementary School in East Moline, a city on the border of Illinois and Iowa. His parents are Cubs superfans and they called Tucker’s school and reported that he was sick so they could bring him to the Cubs’ home opener at Wrigley.

Tucker made his way into the national media when the official @MLB Twitter account tweeted this photo of him holding a sign that says ‘Skipping school…Shh! Don’t tell Principal Versluis’. MLB was nice enough to blur out his face for the photograph but that didn’t matter because Tucker Steckman ran into Principal Versluis just minutes after taking this photograph:

As it turns out, Principal Versluis was also playing hooky. The principal has a 5th grader of his own who he’d pulled out of class for the day (in secret) to go to to the game:

“I saw him and I was kind of ducking down,” Versluis said with a laugh during a cell phone call from inside Wrigley Field.
“I didn’t want him to see me either,” he said. “I’m here with my son, Aiden, who’s in fifth grade and I called out sick for the day!”
Versluis and Tucker, who was attending the game with his Cubs crazy parents — who called him in sick at school for the day — came together for a memorable picture.
“It’s all good,” Versluis, 43, said of the absences.
“I haven’t missed a day in six years. I took yesterday off and when the game was postponed due to weather I got special permission from my superintendent to take another day.”
As for Tucker’s ditch day: “Doesn’t bother me. He’s a great kid. He was student leader of the year. I thought the sign was hilarious.” (via)

What kind of small-town America b.s. is this?! The principal and a kid both skip school to see the Cubs, get caught, but instead of getting in trouble they are applauded and rewarded with a heartfelt news story in the Chicago Sun Times.

Couldn’t they have just handled this like normal people and pretended the other one doesn’t exist? I don’t even say hello to people I know in Church let alone when I run into them in public. This is insanity.