It was a Sunday afternoon, the snow was coming down steady and gorgeous, the wind chill was stuck at negative 25, and I was on the phone with Joe Sass, Chicago’s newest folk hero.

“I just got back from some intense sledding with my daughter,” he told me. “We were the first ones there so I had to go down a few times by myself. Groom the trails for the other kids.”

Three days earlier, a WGN News helicopter captured footage of Sass, a crossing guard at Jamieson Elementary School, hoisting a kid over his shoulder and carrying him across the slushy mess caused by a water main break nearby. Stop sign in one hand, kid held steady on his shoulder with the other, Sass even pauses at one point to retrieve his passenger’s dropped water bottle from the icy stream. (Google the video if you haven’t seen it. You’ll be happy you did.)

“My buddy Ron sent me a picture,” Sass said. “He goes, ‘This is you, isn’t it?’ I’m like, ‘Yeah that’s funny.’ I sent it to my friend who works at the post office. ‘Look WGN caught me working.’ I really didn’t think anything of it.”

Chicago did.

“HERO CROSSING GUARD,” WGN Morning News reporter Marcus Leshock posted on X, along with the helicopter footage.

The post spread like wildfire through a city parched for something kind and beautiful. By the next morning, Sass was in the WGN Morning News studio recounting the tale. School was canceled that day due to the cold, so Sass was available.

“I look at it with these kids as I wouldn’t treat them any different than I treat my own daughter,” Sass told the WGN hosts.

I posted the segment on Instagram the day after it aired on WGN. Someone treating all children like his own can’t be shared and shouted and celebrated loud enough, to my mind.

Turns out we have a mutual friend.

Lynn Gilbertsen, whose family adventures I wrote about in August 2020, sent me a note letting me know she teaches Sass’ 9-year-old daughter. He brings her family venison jerky. I asked her to put us in touch. We talked the next day.

“One of my crossing guard supervisors told us once, ‘These are our babies,’” Sass told me. “It hit me so hard. Ever since then, I treat them like they’re my own child. Like how I’d want my daughter to be treated.”

The day of the water main break, the forecast didn’t call for snow. Kids were walking to school in sneakers.

“I saw Jose and I know he doesn’t like to get his shoes wet or dirty,” Sass said. “I looked at him like ‘What do you weigh, 80?’ He’s like ‘60.’ I go, ‘Would it be OK if I pick you up?’ He was like, ‘OK, we can do that.’”

And they did. If you watch the whole WGN clip, you see Sass helping other pedestrians — including families with strollers — navigate the mess.

“One of the things I love about being a crossing guard is I get to meet all these different people,” he said. “Especially in our little corner of the North Side, it’s so diverse. I tell people all the time our neighborhood is like the UN. We’re so lucky to have all these different cultures and know people from all over the world. It’s so beautiful.”

Sass, raised in Chicago, is a longtime rugby player, formerly for the Chicago Westside Condors.

“Rugby really opened my eyes up to the world,” he said. “I met my wife playing rugby. I played in South Korea, Scotland, the Bahamas. The nice thing about rugby is you have a friend anywhere you go in the world.”

Ron Estrada, the buddy who alerted Sass to his burgeoning fame, also played rugby. After watching his longtime friend — and groomsman — get some much-deserved recognition, Estrada set up a GoFundMe in his honor.

“This fundraiser is a way for everyone to say thank you,” Estrada wrote on the page, “whether it’s buying Joe a coffee, a cold Old Style, or some sausages, every donation is a gesture of gratitude. HALF of what we raise will go directly to Joe and his family and THE OTHER HALF will be donated to Project HOOD, a Chicago charity that our guy loves.”

Sass has been a fan of Project Hood, a group that provides mentorship and tutoring to young people in Chicago, since he heard founder Pastor Corey Brooks being interviewed on WGN Radio, he told me.

A totally delightful aside about Sass is how he radiates love for all things Chicago. The two best parts of this whole adventure?

“For people to see Chicago in this beautiful light that uplifts our neighborhoods and schools and communities,” he told me. “And me being able to see the Tom Skilling weather center.”

Can we get a street named after this guy? An elementary school maybe?

Thanks for your heart and your example, Joe. Chicago — and the world — need them more than ever.

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