Bleacher Report, Sports Illustrated, ESPN, Chicago Sun-Times, Ashton Kutcher. These are just five of the dozens of sports pages, news sites and celebrities that gave Ben Larson’s ‘13 tweet national recognition. Earlier this week, a screenshot of the email from his University of Illinois professor, Dave, allowed him to reschedule his midterm, which wouldn’t regularly be allowed. Professor Dave found a soft spot in his heart as Larson told him about his plans to attend the Cubs vs. Pirates Wild Card Game in Pittsburgh on Oct. 7 where the Cubs have an opportunity to win their first playoff game since 2003.

The tweet which was sent out Friday Oct. 2 exploded all over Instagram and Twitter from huge pages such as SportsCenter and Sports Illustrated as early as Monday Oct. 4.

“I didn’t think it would blow up like it did,” Larson said. “I remember waking up Monday morning and having a ton of direct messages on Twitter as well as hundreds of favorites and retweets. It got pretty crazy on Monday.”

According to Larson, the syllabus only allows for rescheduling due to illness and other random necessities, but because of the nature of what was about to happen, he figured he would give it a go.

“To be honest, I didn’t think he was going to let it go, but he’s a good guy so I figured I might as well tell the truth,” Larson said.

Larson and his family, a bunch of life-long Cubs fans, had been planning on attending for a while and have to make a 460 mile trek down to the Iron City to see potential Cy Young candidate Jake Arrieta go up against Gerrit Cole in a pitcher strong matchup at PNC Park.

“I talked to the professor [Tuesday] about it to make sure that he was cool with everything going on,” Larson said. “He thought it was pretty cool and funny actually.”

The Cubs’ success has largely been attributed to manager Joe Maddon who turned the team from a 71 win team to a 97 win team in the 162 game season and clinched their first playoff appearance since 2008 when they were swept in a best of five game series by the Los Angeles Dodgers, who will also be making an appearance this postseason.

“It’s going to be incredible. There’s two great pitchers going up on the mound,” Larson said. “I don’t want to jinx anything, but it’ll definitely be one of those games where everybody is holding their breath the entire game.”