Born and raised in France, Laurent Pernot came to the U.S. as a Chicago-area foreign-exchange student in 1988 and caught ’89 Cubs playoff fever. He is the executive vice chancellor of the City Colleges of Chicago, and lives in the city with his wife Jennifer and sons Gabriel, Luca and Leo.

"Quite readable. . . . Pernot does not ultimately suggest there is a cure for Cub fever, but he certainly gives us the basis for a better understanding of the phenomenon."--Aethlon: The Journal of Sport Literature "A well-written and entertaining read, filled with copious illustrations and photos that might sustain the rabid Cub's fan base as they 'wait until next year.'"--Journal of Sport History "An excellent reference of the glory days for those poor fans caught up in the endless cycles of 'Wait Until Next Year' on the Northside of Chicago."--SABR's The Inside Game "A journey worth taking for both the serious baseball historian and the casual baseball fan alike." --Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society "Packed with entertaining stories, the general public with find Before the Ivy informative and rewarding."--Journal of Illinois History "With so many things we love, there must a history lesson in order to understand what it is that got us here in the first place. Before the Ivy does just that, taking the reader to a time just after the Civil War and at the dawn of the second Industrial Revolution when labor laws didn't exist and the thought of having a beer at a ballgame was unheard of. . . . Pernot's book isn't just a trip a handful of decades ago, when our fathers or grandfathers were adjusting the bunny ears on the television or finding the right spot on the back porch for the radio to come in clearly in order to catch their favorites starts of the game. It's back to a time so delicate where the balance of interest in the game relied so heavily on those who promoted it by way of barnstorming across the country as well as weeks-long trips across the ocean to foreign lands."--Gapers Block "If you like the Chicago Cubs and thoroughly researched and well-written books, then you're going to dig Before the Ivy. Pernot weaves all kinds of information and insight into this lively early history of this once-great and championship-riddled organization, the now World Series-deficient Chicago Cubs."--Carson Cunningham, co-editor of Before the Curse: The Chicago Cubs' Glory Years, 1870-1945 "Long-suffering Cubs fans will take great pleasure from this delicious account of the late 19th and early 20th century Chicago National Leaguers before Wrigley Field, when the Cubs were perennial contenders, and mounted some of the most powerful teams in all of baseball history. Laurent Pernot gives us thoughtful portraits of baseball greats Al Spalding, Mike "King" Kelly, Adrian "Cap" Anson--and takes us deep inside the careers and rivalries of the famous combination of Joe Tinker, Johnny Evers, and Frank Chance. This book will warm the hearts of Cub fans in the long winter of their losing near-century at beautiful, unlucky Wrigley Field."--Warren Goldstein, author of Playing for Keeps: A History of Early Baseball and (with Elliott Gorn) A Brief History of American Sports"Nicely written and quite lively. A good, engaging narrative, with some fine storytelling about a subject that many are passionate about."--Elliott Gorn, author of The Manly Art: Bare-Knuckle Prizefighting in America