Isabelle Pinard
Reporter
Quidditch season has begun … The whole school seemed to be out in the stands around the quidditch pitch … Fifteen brooms rose up, high, high into the air. They were off,” writes J.K. Rowling in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, and now Middlebury College student Alexander Manshel has introduced the fictional game played by wizards and witches to the “muggle,” or mortal, world.
Quidditch is a sport where anyone can have a chance to be a kid again,” said Middlebury quidditch team captain Kate Olen. “You actually start believing that you are in the world of Harry Potter.”
Manshel and his friend Alex Benelope invented a non-magical version of the game and established the Intercollegiate Quidditch Association in 2005 that includes more than 200 institutions including Cal Berkeley, Harvard and Stanford Universities, as well as teams in Argentina, Iceland and France.
I had no idea that this sport was going to be as big as it is,” said Olen. “It boggles my mind to see other teams from so many different colleges.”
The quidditch of Rowling’s books requires magic and flying broomsticks, so Benelope created the 36-page Intercollegiate Quidditch Rules and Guide Book, a muggle manual consisting of rules and requirements for the serious sport resembling a combination of dodgeball, basketball, rugby, soccer and baseball.
The best part of quidditch is the imagination,” said Olen. “People who play quidditch have grown to become more completive over the years, but 80 percent of this sport is having fun and having an open mind. The team players have to be athletes with agility and endurance. The competition and seriousness is what makes muggle quidditch such a true sport.”
Quidditch uniforms consist of a cape, lacrosse goggles and colored headband indicating field position. A team must also obtain at least 14-quidditch broomsticks, one per player, which must be between the legs of players at all times during the game.
The most unique part of quidditch is the chance to ‘ride’ on a broomstick,” said Olen. “I mean, we can’t fly yet, but the experience of being on a broomstick really gives the feeling of being in Harry Potter’s world. It is also a challenge to run while on a broom stick and only have one arm free to catch and throw, but maybe one day we won’t need to run.”
Middlebury College continues to lead the quidditch movement, traveling to colleges to introduce the sport that has caught the eye of students, including senior Scarlett Kirk.
I’ve always been an athlete and will probably continue with the sports I am best at, but I might end up on the Middlebury College Quidditch team,” said senior Scarlett Kirk, who is considering attending Middlebury in the fall. “It seems like a lot of fun. It’s so different from other sports.”
To future qudditch players, Benelope has a message in the forward of his guidebook that quidditch is more than just a game — it is an attempt to reclaim the fun that is used to accompany sports.
Sharing the sport of quidditch allows people to see that it is possible to create something from fiction and with just a bit of magic, bring it to the real world,” said Olen.
