Spring 2012

SPRING 2012 • WORLD CUP V

QQ

Quidditch Quarterly Spring 2012 Volume 1 • Issue 1 EDITOR IN CHIEF COVER CONTRIBUTORS

Alicia Radford Jerry Wang Laurie Beckoff, Alex Benepe, Leah Farrar, Dan Hanson, Andrea Hill, Rebekah Jones, J.T. Lain, Jack McGovern, Alicia Radford, Abbie Rickard, Kathleen Richter, Katie Stack, Ethan Sturm, Audrey Zeldin Unless otherwise stated: photo credit QuidditchPhotos.com

ART DIRECTOR

Alicia Radford

LAYOUT DESIGN

Alicia Radford

ADVERTISING

Alicia Radford To advertise in Quidditch Quarterly contact alicia.radford@internationalquidditch.org

Quidditch Quarterly is published by the International Quidditch Association. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the consent of the IQA. The IQA is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that governs the sport of quidditch and inspires young people to lead physically active and socially engaged lives. www.internationalquidditch.org

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Recent Tournaments World Cup Midwest Cup, Canadian Cup, Snow Cup, FQC Meet, Mardi Gras Cup, Western Cup

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55 Lifestyles

Tune in to "Off the Pitch and On the Air," Bringing quidditch to the next generation through quidditch, The quidditch diaries: a little less angst, a little more magic

Players’ Corner

Comparing sports: basketball vs. quidditch, Spotlight on: beaters

By the Numbers, Standings, Why it wouldn't be so bad if you didn't totally hate Middlebury for winning, Purdue stuck at Randall's... with a trophy, Florida: A runner up story, Don't mess with the Southwest, Represent the West

GOING BACK TO THE DURSLEY’S FOR THE SUMMER? Quidditch season doesn’t end for us.

Join the IQA for the first-ever Quidditch Convention in Chicago this summer. Three days of programming, a Great Hall-style feast, a ball, referee and snitch workshops, a mini quidditch tournament, and sight-seeing around Chicago—all with your favorite quidkids.

Don’t get left in the cupboard!

REGISTER AT QUIDCON2012.COM 2012 CHICAGO • JULY 12-15

From the editor Welcome to the Spring 2012 issue of Quidditch Quarterly! It’s been a long time since the last issue of the magazine formerly known as the Seer. From now on, QQ will be a quarterly publication, so that our editorial staff can take more time per issue and produce higher quality pieces.

It seems like an unbelievable amount has happened since the September/October Seer. This issue’s 20-page section on recent tournaments is a testament to that. Coverage of the 2011 World Cup makes up the rest of the bulk of this issue.

This weekend I had the pleasure to attend the third annual Western Cup. I also went last year, and the change between this year and last year was staggering. While the teams at last year’s Western Cup were congenial, traveling together to the World Cup as the perceived underdog region brought the Western teams so close together that the region’s official slogan is “Western Region means family. Family means no one gets left behind.”

The Western Cup was the best-run tournament I’ve seen to date—and I've been to a few.

But it’s indicative of a trend. The Mardi Gras Cup hosted by LSU got great feedback from participating teams, despite inclement weather turning the two-day tournament into a oneday tournament at the last second. The Florida Quidditch Conference continues to grow, and new conferences like the Massachusetts Quidditch Conference are already scheduling full seasons. Quidditch is becoming more athletic and more legitimate every year. But the Western Cup showed me that competitive, well-run quidditch does not have to exist separately from the whimsical spirit that drew many of us to this game in the first place.

When I see UCLA and USC doing the Jets and Sharks bit from West Side Story before the championship match, or two chasers from that match hugging after an intense collision, I know that we’ve developed a sport worth fighting for. An inclusive sport that welcomes people from all over the Breakfast Club clique spectrum. A sport that doesn’t need to leave anyone behind.

Play on.

Alicia Radford

Quidditch Quarterly • Spring 2012

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Letters

Dear Alicia,

Hello over there, I’m Maurice all the way from LA.

Hello, my name is Austin Halvorson and I am currently trying to form a team in my community in Oklahoma. I enjoyed following the action of the World Cup on twitter and even lost some followers because of all my retweets! First, I would like to say it was a very exciting World Cup and look forward to hopefully playing in the next World Cup. My only concerns were the amount of injuries (mostly the concussions since I have suffered one from football myself ). As I form my team I will implement a mandatory mouthgaurd rule and I would urge the International Quidditch Association to do the same.

One thing that is appealing about the sport of quidditch is the physicality without pads and an easy way to prevent concussions without adding helmets is the mouthguard.

I’m a fan of alternative sports and when I heard about the Quidditch World Cup I feel in love with this sport. I myself play an alternative sport, a derivative of an old Native American sport where you put a ball through a hoop on a pole twelve feet up. You’ve probably seen it in the movie El Dorado. But in LA I’m literally the only one who plays it, probably in the state.

Anyway... the first time I heard of quidditch from my HQF (hardcore fan) man who showed me a game from a year ago; it rocked. The only let down was the length. The game was going good until someone caught the golden snitch within the first five minutes. This happens quite often because the snitch is a person. So I went about my days until I thought about it again.

So I put some thought into it, and here’s my ideal to replace the human snitch with an RC car.

These RCs are off-road compatible, can reach 25 miles per hour and up depending on the RC. They’re highly maneuverable with in-stand braking. Some run on electricity while others are gas powered. The controller could sit in the stands and have a clear view of the car and players.

Using this, then quidditch would be true to its name.

Because all of the other players are two to their position, and this will make it so for the seeker. The seeker is the most important and difficult role on the team, so this would make it so. Along with the game more point driven and creating those unbelievable moments when the seeker actually catches the snitch. It could also create legends out of seekers in the quidditch community.

So that’s my ideal for the game. I would be honored if you went with my idea. I don’t require any compensation or money, just a good quidditch match.

Take care, love the game. Oh. And shout out to the Potter Puppet Pals on youtube.

-Austin Halvorson

Hello Katie, [IQA Membership Manager -Ed] It was a great feeling when I received your email!!

I have a team here, in Iran, but there are so many difficulties that we can’t even play!! :( We can not have a boys and girls team... and we can not even play in most of the playgrounds!

And actually I couldn’t find enough girls to have a team!! :( The felix felicis was fake!!

But I try my best!!

-Andishe

-Maurice

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Quidditch Quarterly • Spring 2012

Why Quidditch makes me positive about our nation’s future I just got back from the Quidditch World Cup games in NYC and wanted to share some observations on why I feel the evolution of quidditch as a sport embodies so much that is good about young people and gives me hope for our nation’s recovery.

First a little background. Quidditch is the flying broomstick game from Harry Potter. In the mid-2000s a student then at Middlebury College, Alex Benepe, founded a quidditch team and it spread like wildfire among the northeastern small private schools. College quidditch organically emerged from a generation’s love of Harry Potter and is totally self-organized and run by volunteer enthusiasts. Once the quaffle was rolling in Middlebury, the sport snowballed across the world (We watched UCLA beat Finland’s team).

In many respects the IQA (International Quidditch Association) is like a start-up. One person’s idea took off in a market just waiting to emerge. Talents of all the college students, some athletic, some in video documentary making, some entrepreneurial came together to make the IQA a reality.

It did not escape me that all the skills needed to make the IQA a success are the same skills needed to thrive in our capitalist system: hard work, good communication skills and networking, marketing savvy, and a little chutzpah. I loved that there were World Cup t-shirts for sale, baseball-like trading cards with outstanding players from each team and ESPN-like team analysis online. There was serious discussion about how to better engineer the irrigation pipe/hula hoop goal posts and market them worldwide.

Among Western Region teams, mutual respect and camaraderie ruled in this weekend’s games. All the Western teams, Utah, Arizona State, UCLA, and USC and the local club team (Silicon Valley Screwts) came to cheer Cal on in their final game Sunday.

Between games, in the team tent area, my daughter Sylvia went to all the Western teams, wished them well and discussed various referee issues. After Cal’s first loss to Boston University,

where the ref was clearly not well versed in the rules, players from the Western teams discussed pre-game communication strategy with each ref and opposing team captains to prevent this problem from repeating in later games. No one was a crybaby about the poor reffing. The players just figured out a positive way to prevent poor referees from plaguing them again.

In one game we watched, Middlebury versus UCLA, there was a very unpopular ref call. One of the USC players on the sideline shouted a four-letter invective and was quickly silenced by a teammate saying, “Hey, there are children here, watch the language.” Maturity and professionalism ruled.

Poor sportsmanship, rough play, illegal tackling-if these are team culture, it reflects poorly on those teams and will follow them on Facebook, Twitter and possibly future professional contacts. On the flip side, good sportsmanship, leadership and competence will be remembered and I suspect, will be another factor in how the person will be viewed as a future professional colleague.

Quidditch is truly an emergent business and I dearly hope it stays under the bureaucratic radar. Seeing these capable young adults gave me much hope that this generation will value their freedom to be truly entrepreneurial unimpeded by an overreaching state and be willing to speak up when the long hand of bureaucracy finally catches up with them Harry Potter’s freedom from parental control (albeit from tragedy) resonates deeply with a generation of overprogrammed kids. Whose kid now in college didn’t play endless organized school soccer or spend hours in Kumon or SAT prep classes? In Potter, the hero overcomes adversity with his own initiative, integrity and wits. These young adults are surely practicing all the skills they will rely on in the rest of their lives.

Individual quidditch accomplishments emerge out of each person’s unique contribution to the sport. Owning one’s own skills and being able to call upon them at any time is a key to success in life. To quote my daughter Sylvia, “It was the best weekend ever” and I concur.. -Monica Bowditch Quidditch Quarterly • Spring 2012

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RECENT TOURNAMENTS

Recent for this magazine, anyway.

October 9-10, 2011

Midwest Cup

By Alex Benepe

Kansas University, a team few had heard of this fall, made their debut on the national quidditch scene in a major way. In a stunning comeback, KU went from being down 40 points against Pittsburgh QC in the Midwest Cup championship match to pulling out a 70-40 win, clinching their title in the Midwest.

The Midwest Cup was expertly organized by Purdue and Ball State, particularly under the efforts of Hannah Lindgren, Karla Bentcover, and Hannah Peterson, and supported by the Conner Prairie Interactive History Museum and the Hamilton County Sports Authority.

It was an excellent weekend in Indiana for quidditch: 70 degrees, not a cloud in the sky, and dry with just a faint breeze.

Conner Prairie, the location of the tournament, is an idyllic, gorgeous venue. Rolling hills, forests, open plain for the games, and massive cornfields surrounding the area. I can say from personal experience that cornfields make the best snitch hiding spots ever (and also a little scary to spend 15 minutes in by yourself ). I pity the seekers that have to pursue snitches through them.

After Kansas upset apparent favorites Michigan State in a close 100-70 semifinal match with the snitch snatch, and Pittsburgh knocked out Illinois State University with a convincing 90-40 win (ISU’s snatch) in the other semifinal, KU and Pitt were

locked in for an epic showdown.

The final match initially looked like another steamroller victory from Pitt, as they took an early 50-10 lead over the blue crew from the Midwest. But the match gradually transformed into a nailbiter. The comeback started when chaser Hai Nguyen received a beautiful pass deep in the Pitt keeper zone and slammed it in the hoops, bringing the game back into the magic 30-point zone, where the prospect of an overtime-inducing snitch grab can revive a team’s flagging hope.

This moment did not go unnoticed by the crowd, composed primarily of over a half-dozen other Midwest teams, who began chanting “MIDWEST, MIDWEST” to egg on their peers. The fact that Pitt destroyed most of these teams all day long by point differentials often reaching over 200—and that Pitt had the audacity to attend the Midwest Cup to begin with—did not make them crowd favorites, even though most teams I spoke to were in awe of their skill.

Quidditch Quarterly • Spring 2012

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The Midwest Cup was expertly organized by Purdue and Ball State, particularly under the efforts of Hannah Lindgren, Karla Bentcover, and Hannah Peterson, and supported by the Conner Prairie Interactive History Museum and the Hamilton County Sports Authority.

It was an excellent weekend in Indiana for quidditch: 70 degrees, not a cloud in the sky, and dry with just a faint breeze.

Conner Prairie, the location of the tournament, is an idyllic, gorgeous venue. Rolling hills, forests, open plain for the games, and massive cornfields surrounding the area. I can say from personal experience that cornfields make the best snitch hiding spots ever (and also a little scary to spend 15 minutes in by yourself ). I pity the seekers that have to pursue snitches through them.

After Kansas upset apparent favorites Michigan State in a close 100-70 semifinal match with the snitch snatch, and Pittsburgh knocked out Illinois State University with a convincing 90-40 win (ISU’s snatch) in the other semifinal, KU and Pitt were locked in for an epic showdown.

The final match initially looked like another steamroller victory from Pitt, as they took an early 50-10 lead over the blue crew from the Midwest. But the match gradually transformed into a nailbiter. The comeback started when chaser Hai Nguyen received a beautiful pass deep in the Pitt keeper zone and 9

Quidditch Quarterly • Spring 2012

slammed it in the hoops, bringing the game back into the magic 30-point zone, where the prospect of an overtime-inducing snitch grab can revive a team’s flagging hope.

This moment did not go unnoticed by the crowd, composed primarily of over a half-dozen other Midwest teams, who began chanting “MIDWEST, MIDWEST” to egg on their peers. The fact that Pitt destroyed most of these teams all day long by point differentials often reaching over 200—and that Pitt had the audacity to attend the Midwest Cup to begin with—did not make them crowd favorites, even though most teams were in awe of their skill.

“It’s inspiring to watch them; they handle the ball differently than anyone else,” observed Purdue first year Kyle Marpe.

Pitt, under the sage leadership of grizzled captain and four-year veteran John Battaglia, lived up to their usual high caliber play. They exhibited mindboggling breakaway speed down Kansas’ flanks (Andrew Bulman in particular), along with fantastic footwork (Sara Dugan executed one of the best legal slide tackles I’ve ever seen on a guy twice her size), and amazing behind-the-back passes that left their opponents guessing where the next attack would come from. They have developed a go-to move (Bulman and Kurt Rishel in particular) where they approach the hoops from the front but whip under them with the

scoring hand at the last second and slam it in from the backside-a difficult maneuver but almost impossible to block (I think I’m going to call it “the reacharound” from now on). It also helped that their keeper, Jeff Moulton, stands a good two feet above the average quidditch player and is fast enough to accompany every chaser charge down to their opponent’s hoops and beat it back to his own in time to easily defend against the next attack.

Despite all these great features, the raw athletic skill, undaunted rookie spirit, home-crowd support, and fresh-looking uniforms of the Kansas squad (led by President Nicole Denney and Captain Doug Whiston) combined to upend the veteran squad from the Northeast. While Pitt went for the penetrating maneuvers and fast short passes, Kansas went for more of a guided missile approach, sending longbomb, deadly-accurate passes into the Pitt zone where Nguyen picked them out of the sky (despite being frequently thwarted by the anti-aircraft gun/keeper known as Moulton) and dropped them in the hoops to gradually bring the game to a 50-40 Pitt lead.

However, MVP for the game needs to go sophomore Aaron Pope, the Kansas seeker, who was the final conversion factor not only for the Kansas victory but also the semifinal against MSU. Within minutes of the snitch returning to the field in the championship match, Pope completed the snatch and secured the Cup for his team. And this was no fluke.

Pope, a demure, gazelle-like predator disguised as a human, is a seeking machine. Pegging him easily as a veteran cross-country runner, I asked him earlier in the day for his best time in the 5k (a 5,000 meter, or 3.1 mile, race, which is the most common distance in high-school cross country), and he revealed that he clocked in at a sizzling 16:01. When I asked him where that put him at his state championships, he replied modestly, “oh, around 12th or 13th.”

Indeed, there is a new breed of athlete playing quidditch these days.

Congratulations to Kansas Quidditch and all of the Midwest quidditch teams for a fantastic conclusion to the Midwest Cup. ●

Connor Prairie from above.

October 29, 2011

Canadian Cup

By Andrea Hill

Montreal’s McGill University defended its title as Canada’s top quidditch team in the country’s first-ever Canadian Cup. McGill defeated host Carleton University in the finals by a score of 160-80 after Carleton’s seeker snatched the snitch.

Eight teams, including one American team from St. Lawrence University (Canton, NY), competed in the one-day tournament in Ottawa. Nineteen games were played on two fields, making the tournament the largest quidditch event in Canadian history.

The day began with an opening parade that featured drums, Canadian flags and gallivanting snitches.

Rousing choruses of “O Canada” and the American anthem preceded the first matches that saw face-offs between Carleton and Ryerson University and between U of O and University of Toronto. Both Ottawa teams triumphed in their first matches and went on to dominate in the round robin games. They would eventually meet in the semi-finals where Carleton defeated U of O by a score of 110-10. U of O went on to finish third.

It may have been the coldest of regional quidditch tournaments, but that did not dull the enthusiasm of players or fans. Close to a hundred spectators gathered around the main field to watch the final game and

listen to the witticisms of Carleton’s improv team members who were commentating the match. Media representatives jostled around the sidelines, trying to speak to anyone who knew anything about quidditch.

Positive news coverage about the tournament circulated the web, newspapers and airwaves in the week following the tournament, helping to raise the profile of quidditch in Canada. And for people already engaged with the Canadian quidditch scene, the tournament offered an opportunity to network with fellow quidditch enthusiasts.

Five the teams that competed in the Canadian Cup went on to play in the World Cup the following month. All occupied a corner of the players’ village decorated with Canadian flags and made their presence throughout the tournament known by cheering louder than anyone.

Many Canadian teams are continuing to practice throughout the winter despite cold and snowy conditions so that they can give it their all at next year’s Canadian tournament. Teams are currently bidding on where and when this tournament will be held. ●

Andrea Hill is a journalism and biology student at Carleton University in Ottawa, ON and founder of the university's quidditch team. She works to promote the growth of quidditch outside of the United States and is a regular editorial volunteer.

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Quidditch Quarterly • Spring 2012

Canadian Cup Winners McGill University || Provided

Quidditch Quarterly • Spring 2012

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February 4, 2012

Utah Snow Cup

By J.T. Lain

The home team—the Utah Crimson Fliers—sealed a Snow Cup victory despite losing to the Northern Arizona University Narwhals in the final match. NAU overcame a point deficit and the horrifying vision of their friend and seeker Jyharri Ahmed floored after a freak accident to win the final 70-50. Injuries ranged from the wind being knocked out of players to broken fingers from misplaced quaffle kicks.

This tournament was an achievement. Teams and players from all over the region came to participate and quality quidditch was played. Quidditch player trading cards made by Utah Crimson Flier George Willis were a huge hit with people asking for autographs of friends they hadn’t seen since the World Cup last autumn. Every player’s youth dream of having a playing card with their likeness imprinted on it came to life with spirits rising higher than Utah’s elevation.

Commissioner Alex Benepe was able to attend due to funds raised by the organizing team and donations from other players. “What’s very interesting to see is the development of this very tight knit community...I’d say the West has this culture-I don’t know how it started but Harrison [Homel] influenced this legacy and I love to see these western teams compete. It’s surreal...I never would’ve imagined this back in Middlebury...” said Benepe as he carefully negotiated the frozen ground underneath his boots.

The prevailing atmosphere at the end of the tournament was excitement for the upcoming Western Cup on March 10-11.

Naturally, some teams performed better than others. Here’s a recap.

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Quidditch Quarterly • Spring 2012

#1 UTAH Called the “Middlebury of the West,” the Crimson Fliers dominated the competition. Over the ranked matches, Utah went 23 for 27, shooting with eight play-ending bludgeons and three seeker bludgeons, all while only acquiring the quaffle at brooms up once. Utah’s rookie seeker had four snitch snatches over six attempts and was a physical force every opposing seeker had to contend with. His play earned him tournament MVP as well as a probable starting position in future tournaments.

When asked why opposing powerhouse NAU couldn’t beat the Utes early on, Narwhal Captain Eric “BearTrain” Andres said, “It most certainly was their defense. They’re under new leadership...and they’ve really come together under a great organization. I think they’re a much better team than they were at the World Cup.” The impenetrable Utah defense allowed only 18 goals against in the whole tournament. That’s right—the whole tournament.

They might not have dream of winning on aggregates, but nevertheless, “The U” will be celebrating this victory for a long time. Unfortunately, Snow Cup was the last time this version of the Crimson Fliers will take the pitch for a long time because of a mass exodus of key players for various reasons. Let’s hope they maintain their strength through new recruits.

#2 NAU Relative unknowns in the quidditch community until a stunning victory over neighbors (and Western Region champion) Arizona State in late 2011, Northern Arizona University Narwhals’ retooled structure and playing style carried this team to a hard fought second place. The Narwhals yo-yo’d between dominating and winning on a lucky break every match, only going 6 for 17 shooting with six play-ending bludgeons and six seeker bludgeons. Their ability to identify and beat every opposing seeker was a major influence on Narwhal victories.

NAU kept a strong presence until the spotlight proved too bright in the match for the first place seed, when Utah won 80 to 10. This wall seemed insurmountable as the penultimate match featured a tired and unsure NAU lose to third place overall AUXAS 50-20, despite getting 10 shots on goal and displaying an impressive defensive. Unable to find the hoops, Narwhal chasers had a task ahead in the final match against Utah. They didn’t rack

up a high score, nor could they afford a cushioned lead. Their defensive stops held the Utah attack until the NAU seeker was able to catch the snitch for the victory.

NAU showed that they had many things to work on and were far from perfect, but they will be a force in the Western Cup.

#3 AUXKAS Third place in presence and standings, amalgamation team AUXKAS (affectionately named when FYSU captain Kevin Oelze tried to insult the team while misspelling “sucks” as “auxkas”) never truly announced their appearance at the tournament. Boy could they win though.

Four times—including one instant snitch snatch ending a game with a victory over UNC without having ever scored a goal.

This rag tag team didn’t match uniforms, didn’t lose by close margins and didn’t defeat anyone as resoundingly as NAU or Utah did, but they won. It’s often said that playing “beautifully” doesn’t produce a high amount of points in any sport, but you cannot ignore that AUX only lost to the tournament champions the whole competition. They defeated the Narwhals (rather hilariously from the sidelines), they defeated every other team they faced mostly by snitch snatches, all while committing the least amount of penalties in the tournament. AUX didn’t score prolifically, mostly relying on an injured Ronell Sharp (Chaser from Kansas) and Svadarma Keerthi from USC to score and chaser Alexis Bristor (ASU Captain) and AUX captain Dan Hanson for assists.

Statistically, they had one of the best defensive displays of the day, accumulating 18 play-ending bludgeons as well as stopping enemy seekers nine times in the ranked matches (six against NAU alone).

AUX chasers created defensive walls that only the Utes found a way around.

#4 FYSU FYSU—which stands for “F Your Shit Up,” a hybrid team—played similarly to AUX but without the defensive productivity of their compatriots. They ended up 3 and 2, with their most impressive games against Denver and BYU combining for 230 points and 40 goals against. FYSU did almost beat NAU, but what appears to have hurt FYSU was their seekers being unable to hunt their targets.

#5 DENVER DEMENTORS A lot could be said about this team. The Dementors played with probably the

greatest tenacity and will. Their physical prowess kept them ahead for most of the inaugural match against the Narwhals until they grew tired. Their team mantra (other than to have the highest beard to skinny jean shorts ratio of the whole state) seemed to be to put their bodies on the players to force turnovers. They were able to get over 30 bludger steals over their 1-4 run. The followers of the dark lord would’ve had more success had they not tired out so quickly.

If they work on endurance and chaser technical scoring skill, they will be a strong contender for a third place finish at their next tournament.

#6 BYU The Cougars are a hard team to describe in the context of this tournament. You could tell that they had a lot of skill, but their team is relatively small in stature.

BYU’s keeper was routinely pushed out of the way for a goal by much stronger chasers. They made impressive finesse shots and the Cougar beaters were by no means inefficient, but BYU placed at an under-performing sixth because of the ease with which opposing teams scored.

However, it must be stated that BYU did play their first two matches back to back and the start of their bad run was initiated by in-state rivals Utah. The Cougars were 2-3, yet they were only able to defeat last place UNC and even then they couldn’t do so firmly. The best word to use here would have to be unremarkable. The Cougars weren’t the worst team in the tournament, but they didn’t really wow anyone either.

#7 UNC Unable to secure a victory all tournament, the real defining blow to UNC’s team spirit came with their mid-tournament controversial loss to NAU. NAU caught the snitch in an ambiguous call ending their match and darkening their moods.

UNC’s best match by far was this match as well, by completely stopping any lucky shots by NAU and breaking down almost all of the Narwhals’ defensive structure.

Earning every point with sweat and skill, the loss was probably the most painful in UNC recent history.

Northern Colorado did have class performance from their Keeper De’Vaughn Gamlin, who scored a majority of their goals. If UNC restructures their game plan with running set offensive plays and allowing their defense to not play a solely stagnant offensive role, they might just prove to be a much better team in the future. ●

Quidditch Quarterly • Spring 2012

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UTAH SNOW CUP Photos by Alexis Bristor. Clockwise from bottom left: BYU quidditch team, Crimson Fliers and Denver Dementors seekers, Northern Arizona University Narwhals, Fliers vs. Narwhals, University of Northern Colorado, the “black white ninja” and the “white black ninja” (in their own words), mercenaries from the Kansas team, and the Western handshake.

February 5, 2012

FQC Meet Photos by AJ Stratemeyer.

The Florida Quidditch Conference convened for a tournament in Sarasota College on February 5, and University of Miami was the standout team of the day, winning every game and catching every snitch. A new team in the FQC, Florida Atlantic University, was present, and despite going 0-4 played extremely well and earned the admiration of the veteran teams.

February 19, 2012

Mardi Gras Cup

By Rebekah Jones

The University of Texas overpowered hosts LSU after eight hours of tournament play and appearances from 14 teams from across the south. The Mardi Gras Cup is the largest in the south to date.

The tournament, slated for both Saturday and Sunday, was pushed to a one-day Sunday event due to a low pressure system moving in from the Gulf, dumping more than four inches of rain and spawning several tornadoes. On the weather, LSU Captain Jason Winn said, “We could have played.”

Several teams made their tournament debut at the cup, including Southern Miss, University High, Texas State and Rice. #4 Texas A&M came in third place, defeating UT’s unranked secondary team, the Texas Deluminators.

Ultimately it came down to #3 LSU and #48 University of Texas (aka Texas Quidditch).

LSU led UT by 10 points at the time of seeker release, but

quickly fell behind as several players were injured, including captain Brad Armentor.

UT’s aggressive defense kept the LSU offense at bay long enough to pull ahead 80-30 and catch the snitch to end the game.

“We went out there and gave it our all every game, taking advantage of our roster's depth.,” said Chris Morris, captain of Texas Quidditch.

In the upset victory, UT defeated LSU 110-30, including the UT snitch catch.

“After this win, I hope that the rest of the quidditch world will stop discounting Texas as just another team,” said Morris. ● Quidditch Quarterly • Spring 2012

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Photos by Rachel Ortega

With this shirt, the odds will always be in your favor.

Get yours today.

Designed by the IQA’s very own Melissa DeVarney and Allyson Burton (University of Texas), this Hunger Games-inspired shirt is a must have for any IQA, Harry Potter, or Hunger Games fan.

The design is printed on deep heather green soft-style cotton, and is available in men’s and women’s sizes.

Order at internationalquidditch.org.

March 10-11, 2012

Western Cup The Western Cup was everything you’d expect from a tournament in the West: full of joy, community, whimsy, and an extremely high level of competitive quidditch. We’ll see you at the next one.

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Quidditch Quarterly • Spring 2012

Standings USC 1 UCLA 2 Utah Crimson Fliers 3 Wizards of Westwood 4 SJSU 5 UC Berkeley 6 ASU 7 NAU 8 Silicon Valley Skrewts 9 Qwertyrians 10 Lost Boys 11 Power Grangers 12 Stanford 13 Golden Snitches 14 Kickasskaban or Harpies 15/16 San Diego Snidgets 17 Claremont or Moorpark 18/19

Previous page: Photos by Monica Wheeler. Left: Photo

by Monica Wheeler. Opposite: Photo by Stephanie Yost.

WORLD CUP V

Photo by Kim Gallagher

BY THE NUMBERS

94 teams

27

US states

Injuries

4

nations

18 ambulance runs 16 sprained knees 16 hand injuries 12 scratches and bruises 1 allergic reaction

1

stadium

2hr waffle line

975 games 250 volunteers

3,000 folding chairs 180 brooms 10 bands

889

water taxi rides Photo by Annie Masters

11,141 books donated to the IQA’s second annual book drive

10,000 spectators

STANDINGS

DIVISION 1 Middlebury College 1 University of Florida 2 Texas A&M 3 University of Minnesota 4 Louisiana State University 5 QC Pittsburgh 6 University of South Florida 7 UCLA 8 University of Texas-Austin 9 Boston University 10 Emerson College 11 University of Kansas 12 Michigan State University 13 UC Berkeley 14 McGill University 15 Villanova University 16 University of Southern California 17 University of Miami 18 University of Michigan 19 Utah Crimson Fliers 20 Penn State University 21 Arizona State University 22 Carleton University 23 Marquette University 24 Virginia Commonwealth U. 25 Silicon Valley Skrewts 26 Hofstra University 27 University of Maryland 28 Vassar College 29 Ohio State University 30

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Quidditch Quarterly • Spring 2012

Silver Pheonixes College of Charleston Harvard University UMass Amerst Toms River Hydras SUNY Geneseo University of Vassa New York University University of Ottowa Lafayette Chestnut Hill College Jet Pack Ninja Dinosaurs Tufts University Sam Houston State University Ives Pond Virginia Tech University University of Richmond Ringling College Stony Brook University St. Lawrence University Ithaca Eastern Michigan University Texas Christian University University of Victoria University of Vermont Yale University University of Rochester Delaware Valley Dragons Bowling Green State University America’s Finest QC

31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60

DIVISION 2 Purdue University 1 Rochester Institute of Technology 2 Iceland Outside Magazine 3 New York Badassilisks 4 Johns Hopkins University 5 Green Mountain College 6 SUNY Fredonia 7 Franklin and Marshall University 8 Syracuse University 9 Illinois State University 10 Maryland Marauders 11 Rollins College 12 Duke University 13 Winthrop University 14 Carnegie Mellon University 15 Hendrix College 16 Swathmore University 17 Loyola-Chicago 18 CAMPS 19 Christopher Newport University 20 Department of Homeland Sorcery 21 Miami Ohio 22 Ryerson University 23 Kutztown University 24

HIGH SCHOOL Trinity High School Pleasantville High School Eleanor Roosevelt High School Briarcliff High School Chittenden County Chimaeras Ursuline School Darien High School Scarsdale High School

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Quidditch Quarterly • Spring 2012

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PROFILES

Why it wouldn’t be so bad if you didn’t totally hate Middlebury for winning its fifth championship

By Dan Hanson

A

nd we all still wonder what it will feel like to be Quidditch World Cup champions… while some of Middlebury’s players are celebrating a college career in which they never had to know what it felt like to lose.

They never will have that feeling of watching the opposing team step ahead of their own seeker at the last second and grab the snitch. Especially since Middlebury was already the defending champ when this year’s graduating class were freshmen, they will never ever know how it feels to go to a school that isn’t the World Cup champion.

Poor bastards…no, that’s not sarcasm. Neither is that.

Here’s the thing: there’s a certain drive, a different element of character, and a unique opportunity that comes at losing in the highest level of competition. Half of all competition is losing, and Middlebury’s players have never had more than the slightest taste of it, at least when it comes to quidditch. And that’s not to mention what it must feel like to have over a thousand people wanting to see you go down in agonizing defeat at all times over the course of an entire weekend. I never felt closer to my team than when we were all huddled together in our team tent, reeling from a heartbreaking loss. Those Middlebury players never had that! But then again, I never won…

And why it wouldn’t be so bad if you were even at least a little happy for Middlebury for winning its fifth championship

S

o, you’re a reasonably competitive person and you think I’m being completely absurd?

Thought so! I’m gonna stretch a little less for this opinion.

We all love a great underdog story. It’s what makes sports and being a sports fan great. And our beloved sport of quidditch has Middlebury—the ultimate antiunderdog. Right? Wrong—not this year. Middlebury was a total underdog. Everybody and their mother and their commissioner thought Middlebury would at least drop out of the top five this year. Okay, that’s a complete exaggeration, but the general sense was the level of World Cup competition along with many of Middlebury’s stars graduating would be too much of a challenge for the forever-reigning champs to handle.

Then the “Beat Middlebury” facebook event hit the 35

Quidditch Quarterly • Spring 2012

web. It went viral among the quidditch community, to the point where even Middlebury Quidditch was attending.

Clearly, people still thought of Middlebury as the team to beat. But the group made them into more of an underdog.

It proclaimed an absolute need for Middlebury to go down, for the sake of the competitiveness of our sport, and politely asked teams to throw themselves as hard as possible at Middlebury in order to wear them down further for the next team: “Remember that you are part of a larger cause of trying to beat this team. Though you may not be able to win your game, if you ensure that you wear them down as much as you possibly can, maybe the next team won’t lose theirs.”

–George Willis (University of Utah), creator of the Beat Middlebury facebook campaign.

Obviously, Middlebury was not the biggest underdog

in the tournament, but this was the best way to make them into a true underdog. Imagine if baseball teams agreed that they would physically wear down the Yankees every game so that they’d be too beaten up after the season to win the World Series. Vegas would at least double the odds for the Yankees to win the championship, and bam! Biggest payroll in baseball, and they’re now definite underdogs.

Don’t get me wrong, this group was a great thing for the sport. It showed nothing but respect for Middlebury in its plea to destroy them. It amplified the culture of competitiveness in the best way possible, giving both Middlebury and its opposition something to rally around.

And then the World Cup was underway. Two thousand athletes were running around Randall’s Island, with their cell phones buried in their backpacks spreading the news to each other the old fashioned way. Middlebury had lost

their first game in intercollegiate history. The University of Michigan successfully beat Middlebury, 70-60.

When players from different teams met each other, the conversations pretty consistently went like this: “This is my name, this is my school, did you hear Middlebury lost?”

Now everybody and their mothers really did think that Middlebury wasn’t the same. They needed a snitch grab to take out UCLA and finish 3-1 in pool play.

But when bracket play began, they needed something else. Marquette was beating Middlebury 40-10. It looked like the end for Middlebury, after only five games. And then the game was called off because of a mistake with the brackets. It seemed like fate, and to a lot of people, it seemed like conspiracy. And I’m sorry if you feel that way, but that’s ridiculous. Maybe that game should have been allowed to finish, maybe it should never have been started.

Quidditch Quarterly • Spring 2012

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But Middlebury was not supposed to play Marquette in that game; they were supposed to play Carleton, and handled them with a 110-10 victory. They fought on, with a come-from-behind snitch grab against Boston University to win 60-40, and then another hard-fought victory in a rematch against UCLA, 80-10.

On to Icahn Stadium. Middlebury’s opponent, Texas A&M, entered the semifinals with championship momentum. They had knocked off the number one seed entering bracket play, their in-state counterparts at the University of Texas. They had a following of fans who were hoping and expecting them to win it all. Middlebury found themselves losing by forty points, unable to even tie it with a snitch grab. More overmatched than they’d been ever before, Middlebury somehow managed to bring the lead down to twenty and catch the snitch. Sounds a little like an underdog story….

It set up an epic final in which Florida was the fourth different team in four years to attempt to dethrone Middlebury. In a back-and-forth game, Middlebury found themselves trailing with the snitch on the field. Florida had finally seemed to figure Middlebury out, but like quidditch fans have seen so many times before, Middlebury grabbed the snitch and the trophy was theirs.

But this was not like other years. Middlebury proved they could play clutch, come from behind, and win games without stomping on teams that they overpowered. It’s no longer about Middlebury being the team that invented quidditch and therefore being the best. It’s about a group of dedicated players who love the game, and didn’t want to be the ones who let their school’s title of Quidditch

World Champions go to another school. Their players did everything they needed to do to win. If you have an irrational love for them or unreasonable hate for them, you have to respect the players who never let up, never got cocky, and fought every second of every game in order to take that Cup home one more time. How can you not be at least a tiny, little bit happy for them?

One of the greatest parts of the World Cup tournament was how it saw many teams take on different identities, defining themselves in quidditch culture. Minnesota, the darling underdog who fought off team after team that was supposed to beat them all the way to the semis in Icahn. Texas, the number one seed in bracket play, with a heartbreaking loss to a team that’s more friend than rival. Texas A&M and its freshman team, the Silver Phoenixes, a team that will be a juggernaut for years to come. Utah, the team who surprised everybody by creating a set of quidditch trading cards, not to mention making a statement that they can contend with top ranked teams like Kansas. Florida, Miami, and USF proved that the state of Florida may be the new talent capital of quidditch.

The Western Conference teams proved that the longest plane rides, jetlag, and being discounted in advance meant nothing, as each of the conference’s six teams moved on to bracket play, and toed the line of how friendly you can be with opposing teams.

Middlebury’s identity remains the classy defending champions. But I think this is the last year they’ll be able to keep that identity. Can’t wait to see what happens at World Cup VI. ●

Dan Hanson went to Emerson College in Boston, where he played keeper for two years. After graduating, he manifested his destiny by moving to Los Angeles, where he watches TV and co-founded the future quidditch powerhouse team, the Lost Boys.

So what kind of ingredients go into a five-time champion team?

“We keep it pretty simple as far as practices are concerned,” said Phil Palmer, one of the Middlebury team’s club commissioners.

Starting the first weekend of school, the Middlebury team trains by playing pickup games once a week. Since the Middlebury team is so large-an enviable 400-500 people are signed up as members of the school’s quidditch club-they have a system to determine who will play in the World Cup. About five weeks before the World Cup, the team splits into self-made teams and plays each other for three weeks. At their intramural Midd Cup, these teams face off, and the team that wins plays in the World Cup, filling the extra spots through a collaborative decision.

While the practice setup is fairly simple, the players 37

Quidditch Quarterly • Spring 2012

By Kathleen Richter

themselves are anything but, most having a strong background in competitive sports. “Most of us were varsity athletes in high school,” Palmer said. “I played baseball and basketball, others played soccer, hockey, softball, cross-country, track, lacrosse, ultimate frisbee, and logrolling, to name a few.”

But according to Middlebury, the real ingredient to this team’s success is love of the game. “We just love to play quidditch for the game it is and the people it brings to the pitch. I think I can speak for everyone on my team when I say that the reason our team was so successful is because we are just that: a team. We just enjoy playing together and treat each other like a family on and off the pitch.” ●

Purdue stuck at Randall’s… with a championship trophy

By Katie Stack

S

unday evening, November 13, 2011-Purdue University’s unexpected winning streak at the 2011 fifth annual Quidditch World Cup began to cause problems. Rumors abounded regarding Purdue’s tournament forfeit; opponents grew worried about unfair elimination play, and the IQA executive staff made its decision. Purdue would not be allowed to continue in elimination play unless the team promised to stay until the end. A championship match could not be won by default.

“We will definitely stay. We’ve come this far-we’re not letting something as simple as travel stop us now. We’ve fought for this. We deserve this,” was the immediate response from the Purdue team captains. The team’s flight home was at 9:30 that evening and if Purdue progressed to the Division 2 championship match in Icahn Stadium, there was a very real possibility that the team would miss its flight. Ultimately, seven players, including two starters, decided to leave the tournament in order to catch the flight home. No one expected the team to advance the way it did.

The remaining players took the risk, and while they did miss that flight, the reward was more than worth it when the 2011 D2 championship team lofted the traditional gold spray-painted trophy in front of a stadium full of fans and fellow IQA members. “[Playing in the stadium] was simply unreal,” Wil Kinkley, team vice-president, recalled. “Walking out onto that field, with the lights glaring down and the massive crowd watching us, was beyond surreal…afterwards, there were plenty of tears.”

The whole weekend of tournament play exceeded the expectations of Purdue Quidditch. Entering the tournament with an international ranking of 91, the team began play with a carefree mindset, standards low. The team’s recent three losses at the Midwest Cup did not do much to boost morale and pre-tournament internet

searches on opponents in the same pool did not yield informative results.

Purdue finished pool play, however, with four big wins and zero losses against the Maryland Marauders, Christopher Newport University, Brandeis University, and Syracuse University, and found itself seeded as number one within Division 2. The team confidently moved to the single-elimination rounds, quickly displacing Green Mountain College, the New York Badassilisks, and finally the Rochester Institute of Technology in the Icahn Stadium championship round.

“Seeker has always been a weakness of ours due to lack of players interested in the position, but we ended up catching six of the seven snitches for our games-and the winning snitch grab was made by the seeker who had never seeked before World Cup,” Kinkley explained with pride.

The team, less than two years old, formed in December 2009 and is an officially recognized student organization within the Purdue community. The organization boasts 60 members, with 30 of them regularly participating.

The 2011 World Cup team was determined through an organized tryout.

The Purdue quidditch team hopes that the D2 championship title will give the organization greater respect and a sense of legitimacy on campus. The goal for the future is to recruit more athletic students to increase the team’s competitiveness at a national and international level, while still attracting other students who want to assist in the club’s expansion in the non-competitive aspects.

“Special tournament play strategies?” Kinkley laughed.

“Score more points than the other team. But seriously, what strategies we had are better to be kept secret for our program to stay successful. That’s understandable, right?”

This strategy is more than understandable, and it’s a strategy IQA teams will have to look out for in seasons to come. Purdue Quidditch is here to stay. ●

Katie Stack is a Boston University graduate with a love for traveling and sandy beaches and all things magical. She currently teaches English in Don Benito, Spain, and you can follow her adventures at http://experienciasespanolas.wordpress.com/.

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Quidditch Quarterly • Spring 2012

Florida: A runner up story

By Jack McGovern

T

his year I have grown to known people involved in the Florida Quidditch Conference (FQC). I have been especially close with Events Director and University of Florida beater Hannah Pohlmann. So, after meeting them in person and watching their games, I was very pleased that Florida made it all the way to the World Cup finals. Here is the 2011 World Cup runner up story.

Florida flew into New York late Friday night hoping that the World Cup would be a successful one for themselves and the other FQC teams (Miami, South Florida, and Ringling). Florida’s first job was to be cheerleaders. They watched a dirty USF vs. McGill game, rooting for their common opponents, USF. USF won the game in OT. After a false snitch snatch by USF, angry about the call, the USF seeker charged the snitch like a bull and snatched the win.

With renewed confidence Florida took the pitch against Ottawa. Cheers of “Canada” and “U.S.A.” reverberated around the stands before the game. From “Brooms Up!” there was competitive bludger play, with beaters wrestling on the ground for the bludgers. Even though the game started evenly, the Florida offense found its groove behind speedy chaser Dre Clements. The game’s snitch had come prepared with a large pink blanket. The snitch would wave it in the air like a matador, then wrap the charging seekers up like mummies. The game went on forever until the Florida seeker finally snatched the snitch.

Florida gained more confidence seeing USF and Miami’s blowout of America’s Finest and Ithaca, respectively. When the referee signaled “brooms down, eyes closed” in Florida’s second game against Geneseo, one of the announcers hopped out of his booth, onto a segway, and onto the field. He took the quaffle and sailed down the field to the Florida hoops, where he scored a goal.

Florida would go on to win the game. The Gators’ biggest test of Saturday was playing Arizona State. Still, Florida triumphed over ASU, showing that they can compete with the big boys.

On Sunday, UF played a rather “interesting” game against the Delaware Valley Dragons, who were already eliminated. Since they had no chance to make it to the

next round, according to what a Florida player overheard, they were going to see if they could get a red card. Well, they did. At one point, a smaller woman from Del Val jumped on top of a Florida player, bringing him to the ground. When asked if she would do it again she replied, “Yes, and with greater force.” Before that, Florida keeper Crews had raced off on several breakaways and dunked it into the hoop. At one point, he faked to throw it directly at the Del Val keeper’s face, and then slammed it home. The announcers called him “the Bernie Madoff of quidditch.”

At the end of the dirty game, Florida’s talent showed in the “a lot to a little” score.

Florida headed into single elimination as the #2 seed.

They beat Ohio State in round one, while USF moved on too, but Miami lost in a heartbreaker to Minnesota (Ringling didn’t make it). In round two, Florida played McGill in front of a gorgeous sunset and a lot of Canadians (“O Canada” was sung before the game). In this game, Florida worked hard to preserve a 30 point lead in case the snitch was snatched by McGill. But, Florida got the snatch and advanced by a score of 90-30.

Florida then knocked off highly ranked Pittsburgh, who had some very big players including a keeper that was at least 6' 10", by a score of 80-60 (first come from behind snatch). Sadly, shortly after their win, Florida found that they were the only FQC team left. USF had lost to Texas A&M 90-30.

Under the lights in Icahn Stadium, Florida defeated Minnesota by a score of 70-50 (second come from behind snatch).

In the final, which I heard was very rough (a red card, a yellow card and an injured Middlebury player), Middlebury jumped out to a 30-0 lead only to eventually be overtaken 80-70 by the Gators. In a turn of events, Middlebury came from behind to win the fifth Quidditch World Cup on a snatch, 100-80.

The Gators should be extremely proud of themselves for surprising the quidditch world, coming out of nowhere and giving Middlebury a run for their money.

Thank you to the second best team in quidditch for letting me be a part of their historic run to the finals. ●

Jack McGovern is a 13-year-old boy from Philadelphia. He was originally not associated with any particular collegiate quidditch team, but when Hannah Pohlmann contacted him about being a junior reporter for the FQC at World Cup VI, he became a Gator. He fell in love with quidditch at World Cup IV and has also been to the Brotherly Love Cup 2011 and World Cup V. For more stories, rankings, and polls, visit his blog at jackthephan-quidditchblog.blogspot.com 41

Quidditch Quarterly • Spring 2012

Don't mess with the Southwest

By Ethan Sturm

C

oming into the 2011 Quidditch World Cup, expectations were high for the Southwest region, which contains two of the perennial powerhouses of the game—LSU and Texas A&M—along with a host of other strong sides. LSU and A&M were the only non-East Coast teams that competed in the 2009 Cup, and both performed well in 2010, earning the No. 3 and No. 12 seeds, respectively But this year, strong elimination round seeding was not going to cut it. LSU entered the tournament as the third-ranked team in the world, while A&M came in in fourth. Other squads from the area were on the rise as well, and when the tournament began, the region did not disappoint. Instead, it proved the potency of its top squads, officially welcomed a third powerhouse side to its ranks, and established itself as arguably the strongest region in the entire world.

GREAT EXPECTATIONS For all of the southwest teams, expectations were high entering the World Cup. LSU was bounced from the quarterfinals in 2010 by a Vassar snitch catch, and had not forgotten that match.

If anything, it drove them even harder to succeed.

“We definitely expected a lot about ourselves,” LSU’s Sarah Kneiling said. “All the teams we kept seeing picked to win we knew we could beat. We were incredibly disappointed with the way we got knocked out in the elite eight by Vassar in the fourth World Cup and since then set out to make sure that didn’t happen again. We reworked our team discipline and training plan and just kept running ourselves more and more like a team.”

Texas A&M didn’t have quite the same type of storied history, but did look dangerous in leading Emerson in the 2010 Round of 16 before a snitch catch ended their run. They built up even more of a reputation since, and many picked them as favorites entering November. They also brought a second squad along, the Silver Phoenixes.

“Both of our teams had been training really hard, and our expectations and our hopes were to win it,” A&M’s Drew Wasikowski said. “Coming into the Cup both our primary team and our secondary team were in excellent shape, excellent condition, and everything was going pretty well.”

Both teams were drawn as the top teams in their pool, with LSU to take on Harvard, TCU, Carleton and the Jetpack Ninja Dinosaurs while A&M had NYU, Miami, Ithaca and Vassar to deal with.

POOL PLAY: HOOK’EM HORNS LSU and A&M both got off to strong starts in pool play. A&M stumbled briefly, taking an 80-40 loss to a Miami side that was part of a tough Florida contingent, but finished out the day with a win and a 3-1 record. LSU ran the table, ending no game with less than a 60 point margin. The Silver Phoenixes almost pulled an upset on a South Florida side that would go on to make the 43

Quidditch Quarterly • Spring 2012

quarterfinals, but still made the knockout round with a 2-2 record.

But the real star of pool play was the University of TexasAustin. The Longhorns were not even the highest seed in their bracket, but won their first three games by a combined 390-30 before beating Marquette to seal up a 4-0 record and the number one overall seed in the knockout round. While the performance surprised much of the quidditch community, their regional rivals knew it was coming.

“We knew they were going to surprise a lot of people at the World Cup,” Kneiling said. “Especially after playing them in the fall, we definitely wanted to keep them a secret. Everyone knows about A&M or us, but we wanted the south to also have that one runaway surprise to sneak up on people.”

“Last spring, we played [Texas] at the Southwest Regionals at Texas Tech, and they were a very good team, but they were nowhere close to as good as they were last fall,” Wasikowski added. “They really stepped up their game and their team a lot.

We played them at the Breakfast Taco tournament in Houston in October, and they were excellent. So going into the World Cup, we knew they were going to do very well.”

Texas-Austin has continued its charge up the quidditch world since the World Cup, changing the power struggle in the southwest from a one-on-one fight to a three-way cage match.

Just to prove they belong, they went through both LSU and A&M on their way to the Mardi Gras Cup title in February.

“UT has definitely stepped up their game, and they are now hands down definitely a team to compete with,” Wasikowski said. “Whenever it has been us vs. UT or vs. LSU for the last year or so, it has always been a close game, always decided by a snitch grab. It’s always very competitive. It’s really fun to have to fight for that top spot in every tournament; it keeps them extremely intense.”

With pool play coming to a close, LSU and Texas-Austin both benefitted from their gawdy records, earning high seeds.

But A&M paid the price for their loss: the bracket lined them up for a potential Round of 16 matchup with Texas-Austin, who would have to play the Silver Phoenixes in the first round.

THE KNOCKOUT ROUNDS: FAMILIAR PLACES, FAMILIAR FACES The first team to play was the Silver Phoenixes, who needed a win in one of four opening round games to make it to the bracket. They took on UMass Amherst, and bested them 50-0 without too much trouble. This set up a match up with TexasAustin, while A&M was slated to face Utah and LSU got the match up it was looking for: a rematch with Vassar.

The Silver Phoenixes did their best to hang with TexasAustin, but with the Longhorns up 60-20 an Austin snitch catch put the match away. A&M won in convincing fashion, advancing to the Round of 16 130-0. And the LSU/Vassar, for all the hype building around it, turned out to not be much of a

game. LSU dispatched of them by a score of 140-10, earning the revenge they craved.

“We don’t take too kindly to losing and it really inspires us to come back and get even better,” Kneiling said. “When we came up against Vassar again at the World Cup, we wanted to make sure we defeated them soundly this time to leave no doubt in anyone’s mind.”

The Round of 16 pitted Texas against Texas, with Austin taking on A&M. Austin jumped out in the a lead, but failed to separate themselves from a pesky A&M side. Finally, a snitch grab by Isaac Salazar gave A&M the victory and a spot in the quarterfinals.

LSU continued to cruise, dispatching the University of California-Berkeley, 170-30. But the schedule didn’t play out in their favor, and a quick turnaround left the squad winded for their match up with a more well-rested University of Minnesota side in the quarterfinals. LSU was still more than capable of keeping the game on an even footing, but a Minnesota snitch grab ended the Tigers’ run.

“Our team was already pretty gassed-due to the schedule delays and a problem with the lights on our field,” Kneiling said.

“We ended up not playing to the best of our abilities and just weren’t scoring as much as we should. They were able to score ten points and catch the snitch in quick succession to end up winning by ten.”

Though LSU made its second straight run to the quarterfinals in the 2011 World Cup, a feat only matched by Middlebury and Pittsburgh, and let no opponent within 60 points in their first six games of the tournament, a certain level of disappointment in not getting farther still permeated the team.

“Overall, [there was] a lot of disappointment,” Kneiling said.

“We lost in the same round for the same reasons as the previous year. Our other games were a great success, but that last game just kills it all.”

At around the same point of the night, A&M was at the opposite end of the emotional spectrum. Facing off against the same South Florida team that had beaten their second squad earlier in the day, A&M righted the wrongs, winning 110-40 and punching a ticket to Icahn Stadium.

THE SEMIFINALS: SEXY AND THEY KNOW IT Texas A&M was slated to play four-time defending champions Middlebury in the semifinals under the lights of Icahn Stadium.

While Wasikowski insisted that he didn’t notice the change in setting all that much, he admitted that nerves began to creep up as the match approached.

“Going into the semifinals, our whole team was a little nervous, but we were definitely ready to take on Middlebury,”

Wasikowski said.

The team definitely did not appear nervous, walking out onto the pitch to LMFAO’s “Sexy and I Know It” before breaking into a dance that could only be described as provocative. Their confidence continued on the pitch, where they jumped out ahead against a Middlebury team that looked shockingly overmatched.

But the Panthers eventually got their feet under them, and a pair of quick goals—with an A&M goal in between—combined with a snitch grab ended the game and gave Middlebury an 8070 win seemingly out of nowhere.

“I do think we played a better game than [Middlebury],” Wasikowski said. “We were leading by a good 30 points the entire game, and then they got a few points at the end and caught the snitch. They do have a really good and really fast chasing team that works well together, their beaters are pretty good, their passes have always been excellent, but I think we had a much faster and more aggressive offensive and defensive playing style and we were running them the entire time. But at the end we let our defense down a little bit and they got a few points and then the snitch.”

But despite the loss so late in the tournament, Wasikowski couldn’t have been prouder of his team over the weekend.

“No matter how far we went, I was very, very proud of both of our teams,” he said. Everybody gave it their 110 percent, and we worked really well as a team. We were winning in the semifinals, we did an excellent job, and I couldn’t be more proud of my players, though it was pretty heartbreaking to lose in the semifinals. We could have had it and taken it all the way to the Cup. But, in general, both of our teams played really well and I’m not disappointed in them at all.”

REGIONAL ROUNDUP With the World Cup in the books, teams have returned to largely regional play. In addition to the Mardi Gras Cup last month, A&M will be hosting a tournament on March 31 while Texas-Austin will be hosting one on April 14. Though the relationship is different than the one seen in the West, Kneiling says the bond is just as strong.

“We definitely stick together down here,” she said. “It’s not really the same type of cohesiveness I feel like I’ve seen with the West, but—if they’re a family, we’re more like a group of close friends who are very competitive with each other, but better friends for it.”

And when asked if the southwest is the world’s strongest region, Kneiling did not hesitate.

“Of course we are! Let any other region challenge us; we will dismantle them.” ●

Ethan Sturm is a junior at Tufts University, where he is studying biopsychology. He plays for Tufts and also captains the Toms River Hydras, his hometown's community team. In the IQA, works in the Game Play Department. He also referees and founded the Massachusetts Quidditch Conference early this year.

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Quidditch Quarterly • Spring 2012

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“Represent the West”

By Kathleen Richter

T

hough this was the first World Cup for any of the Western teams, the region wowed the crowd with their firm grip on quidditchcraft. All six teams—UCLA, UC Berkeley, USC, Utah, ASU, and the Silicon Valley Skrewts—advanced past pool play and ranked in the top 30 Division 1 teams, with four making the top 20. As a region, the West also logged the most travel miles to get to New York; other than the fact that the teams came from the opposite side of the country, several teammates made the trek from different countries (England, Germany, Ghana and Norway). Perhaps the most impressive feature of the Western teams was the regional unity they displayed: cheering for each other at matches, sharing tents, giving intra-regional pep-talks, and the hugging (and skipping) sessions that followed both wins and losses.

One may ask: What fostered this regional unity?

One might say the ground was laid last March and April, with the creation of the IQA Western Region Facebook group—later serving as an intra-regional forum—and the first IQA official Western Cup, where all of the teams had the chance to play each other and come to respect each other’s “mad skills.” What really stoked the flames, however, happened later on the IQA forums, while various posters speculated on how different regions would fare at the World Cup. One poster wrote that he couldn’t take the West as a region seriously-sparking a flurry of westpride activities: chagrined commentary on the Facebook

group; late-night intra-regional captains’ meetings; a logo competition, and individual teammates discussing what the regional theme song should be. The result—what you saw at the World Cup. With the World Cup over and no doubts of the West’s dedication to quidditch to prove wrong, one might expect the regional camaraderie to have diminished. But interestingly enough, the unity has far from fizzled-it’s only grown stronger. I know I am not the only person who, since the World Cup, can now count amongst her Facebook friends members from every single one of the other Western Region teams—including some who weren’t able to get their teams to New York. There have been at least four intra-regional videochat sessions, and several threads on the IQA Western Region Facebook group longer than the average giraffe (Seriously: I’m currently commenting on one thread that’s over 20,000 comments long and it’s still growing). Additionally, over Thanksgiving and winter breaks as teammates went back to their parents’ abodes, the Skrewts (i.e. the West’s token community team) held pick-up games so nearby college athletes could get their quidditch fix while separated from their own teams.

The following months brought many exciting bonding events for the Western region: at least one tournament is scheduled for January, Utah’s Snow Cup on February 4th, and the Western Cup (and associated shenanigans), to be held March 10-11. Look out world—it’s going to be totally awesome. ●

Kathleen Richter started playing quidditch when she found it through Meetup and thought, "zomg must play NOW." She now co-captains the Silicon Valley Skrewts and spams the IQA West Facebook page as often as feasible.

QQ asks: What's your favorite part of Western Region unity?

Sylvia Bowditch (UC Berkeley): “I think I liked the West Coast pep talk the best. That and cheering for UCLA during their second Midd game.”

terminal until 2:00am there’s always someone to talk to because we’re crazy.

Brad Armentor (LSU and honorary West member): “I liked when Sylvia [Bowditch] talked smack before the LSU game.”

Eric Andrews (Utah Crimson Fliers): I vote that, at the Western Cup, each team hugs it out at the beginning of each match. West Style.

Chris Sauro (Silicon Valley Skrewts): When I’m stuck in a bus

Diana Henzler (USC): As a member of the USC quidditch

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team who mainly stayed behind the scenes last year, I was incredibly nervous to play after only a few months of training.

Thanks to an awful red eye flight, I arrived just as teams were processing into the stadium. When I walked in, the energy and atmosphere overwhelmed me. To see so many different people from all over the world coming together brought an amazing feeling of camaraderie to the Cup. But the camaraderie that stood out above all else was that of the Western region teams: UCLA, USC, Berkeley, ASU, Utah, and Silicon Valley. And luckily, I got to experience it personally. I don’t know what it

was, but whether it was due to our geographic isolation from other regions and teams or the need to prove ourselves to those who thought we would not succeed in the Cup, something just brought us together and we all found ourselves cheering on these teams who are often our opponents. I never in my life thought I would be cheering for UCLA and feeling proud for having lost to them in the elimination round, but hey, life is full of surprises.

We are the West. We all love and support each other no matter what, because isn’t that what quidditch is all about? Having fun with people you care about and enjoying the sport we all love. ● Quidditch Quarterly • Spring 2012

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Photos by QuidditchPhotos.com.

Cloclwise from left: UCLA’s Missy Sponagle prepares to pass; Utah Crimson Fliers keeper George Willis takes out a Kansas chaser; IQA Westbook; Kevin Oelze from the Silicon Valley Skrewts with the quaffle; ASU chaser Thomas Bross scores a goal; USC chaser Makena Crowe keeping it cool with the quaffle.

Quidditch Quarterly • Spring 2012

50

LIFESTYLES

Tune in to “Off the Pitch and On the Air,” the first quidditch talk show

By Alicia Radford

E

very Tuesday night, NAU Narwhal players Michael “Meowmers” McKenzie and Eric “BearTrain” Andres take to the airwaves to host a new quidditch variety show, “Off the Pitch and On the Air.” With segments like “Who is Quinksy?” and interviews with IQA staffers and players, Off the Pitch is a playful mixture of quidditch commentary, tournament talk, trivia, and other fluff.

“Mike and I both love quidditch,” Andres said.

“And we felt like there wasn’t a lot of consistent media coverage or updates other than the IQA website, so we decided to combine our love for radio and quidditch and have an hour of fun every week.”

Although the show broadcasts from the West, its listener base is expanding.

“I think it’s a fantastic show that sufficiently discusses quidditch happenings even when there aren’t a whole lot of events to cover,” said Doug Whiston, a University of Kansas chaser. “Eric and Michael are two really fun guys and this radio show gives NAU Quidditch a little extra outlet into the quidditch world where they can comment on happenings and spread tournament awareness.”

Andres agrees. “It’s especially fun to get everyone excited for QuidCon and eventually the new season in the fall. There’s a lot of stuff coming up and we’re excited to talk about it!”

Catch “Off the Pitch” Tuesday nights from 7:008:00pm MST online at kjack.org or subscribe to the podcast on iTunes. ●

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Quidditch Quarterly • Spring 2012

Bringing quidditch to the next generation through kidditch

By Audrey Zeldin

I

’m writing to spread the word on an easy way for teams to help quidditch and kidditch grow in their own communities. Birthday parties! Who doesn’t love birthday parties? After the Johns Hopkins quidditch team held the Charm City Classic the first weekend of April, we were contacted by the parents of a young girl who attended the matches. She had plenty of fun watching the Penn State and University of Maryland teams play us, but she wanted a bite of the action herself.

Her birthday was coming up and her parents came up with the idea of having a quidditch birthday party to celebrate.

They contacted the JHU team, asking for a couple students to bring equipment and help run matches. We were only too happy to oblige.

It happened to be in the middle of our finals, so most of the team was busy alternatively freaking out and locking themselves up to study, but a few of us were free. We brought our hoops and balls (including one World Cup trained snitch—JT Schafer) along with the full set of brooms we had from the Classic (not Alivan’s, unfortunately, but our lobby brooms have the advantage of being lighter). After a few rules modifications, such as cutting out all physical contact and adding a few seekers to each team, we were ready to go. Highlights of the matches included one of the few children who elected to play chaser scoring a bunch of points and watching JT get chased around by six small children with brooms. At one point they treed him, which the children had no idea how to cope with. They weren’t

tall enough to reach the lower branches to follow him up the tree, so play stopped for a few moments while they tried to reach a solution. One girl asked, “Does anyone have an axe?” wanting to chop the tree down to get to JT. Luckily for everyone’s safety, no axe was provided.

The parents of the partygoers were more than willing to stand behind the hoops to chase after stray balls, and all the children respected the “don’t chase balls into the street” rule.

In order to keep play fair and moving, we had members of the JHU quidditch team on both teams playing as chasers, because for some reason that was the least sought-after position. Seekers were plentiful and there was no shortage of beaters, but unlike many other sports no one wanted the goal-scoring position. I think that it was mainly a result of the children still wanting to be as much like Harry Potter as possible, so they all wanted to be seekers. We were told that all the children in attendance were huge fans of the books and movies and that they loved to pretend to be part of the Wizarding World. We hope that this introduction to the muggle version of the game they love to read about instilled a long love of playing in the kids who came.

Their parents know that they can contact us easily if they want to have similar events in the future. Everyone who participated had a great time, even the few kids who were disappointed at the beginning when they realized that our brooms couldn’t fly. The kids who live near JHU know that they’re welcome anytime at our open practices, so we hope to see them this year! ●

Have you done a kidditch event? Tell us about it! Email your story and pictures to alicia.radford@internationalquidditch.org.

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Johns Hopkins Quidditch teaching kidditch || Provided.

Middle school quidditch

These rules were developed by Shannon Greenlese, the coach of the Jericho Underhill Middle School quidditch team and a member of the IQA rules council. For middle school quidditch, the goal is to follow college rules as closely as possible, while making the game safe for younger players. These are suggested rules for quidditch players ages 10-14. All IQA rules should be followed with the following exceptions: Field of play • Field size: 48 feet long by 33 feet wide • The keeper zone is 12 feet from the back line • The goal zone is a 10-foot radius around the goals

Chasers • Chasers may steal the quaffle from an opposing player, but may only touch the quaffle. They may not contact the other player in any way.

• Chasers may not enter the goal zone of the opposing team.

• Chasers must shoot from outside the goal zone.

Beaters • Beaters may steal a bludger from an opposing player, but may only touch the bludger. They may not contact the other player in any way.

• Beaters may not enter the goal zone of the opposing team.

• A beater may not make head shots.

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Keeper • The keeper may not be struck with the bludger while they are in the keeper zone.

• Keepers may not enter the goal zone of the opposing team.

Seeker • The seeker may not physically contact the snitch runner, only the snitch ball.

• The seeker may not enter the goal zone of the opposing team.

Snitch runner • The snitch runner may not physically contact any player.

Physical contact • Players may not stiff arm, tackle or charge another player.

Players may not contact another player in any way. A player may steal a ball from an opponent, but may not contact that opponent, only the ball. ●

The quidditch diaries

A little less angst, a little more magic

By Laurie Beckoff

S

Dear Diary, ix people, then eleven people, then fourteen people attended the first three quidditch meetings of the year.

After I spent a good portion of a weekend making a display board for our club fair and enlisted the aid of some sophomores who had come to practices last year, we had 26 people sign up. I sent out emails, made announcements, and posted all over Facebook to remind everyone about the time and place of the meeting and that appropriate clothing and a signed parental consent form were necessary. Yet only six people showed up, all freshman and sophomore girls, with me as the only senior. I couldn’t be too surprised in a school of a little over 1100 students, 70% of whom are female. I tried to hide my disappointment as we worked on drills for the various positions with hula hoops tied to European handball goals.

The second week was much better. Cynthia, a senior who enthusiastically watched all of our practices last year but didn’t want to play, decided that she would do a very in-depth reading of the rulebook and serve as a referee. She came prepared with notes and a better knowledge of the technicalities and changes in the new rulebook than I had. In addition to having a knowledgeable referee, we had four more players, including two quite athletic senior boys. One, who is a Harry Potter fan, a swimmer, about 6'2", and very devoted to his weight training class, expressed interest from the beginning but had never actually come before. The other just decided that it looked like a lot of fun. With a total of three boys and six girls playing, we were able to do a small match with fewer chasers and beaters and snitching/seeking practice separately. I thought the gym seemed awfully loud when we only had eleven people, but then I realized that there were about 20 students cheering in the bleachers.

The few boys in my grade can be really good guys. The two from last week came today and brought another three with them, in addition to the one sophomore boy. Six boys and seven girls, plus the female referee. A ratio that close is extremely rare for anything in my school. We started by introducing ourselves and saying the Hogwarts house to which we belong. There were a bunch of Gryffindors like me, but a surprisingly large number of Ravenclaws, mostly the senior boys. Kids are pretty studious.

Each team had a keeper, three chasers, and two beaters, one of whom became a seeker when we added in the snitch after a few minutes. The matches were intense, fast-paced, and sweaty.

Brooms were losing all of their bristles. The ends of some of the broomsticks fell off entirely due to the players being so active.

There really is a place for everyone in quidditch. One freshman girl who announced from the start that she wasn’t athletic realized that although she had trouble as a chaser, she’s a pretty good keeper. Another girl who wasn’t very comfortable as a chaser turned out to be a fantastic beater, sneaking up on opposing players and hurling bludgers at them before they noticed her presence. She hit me a number of times and gave all of us a run for our money.

I love the co-ed nature of quidditch. I asked for a volunteer to be the snitch, and the aforementioned 6'2" senior boy raised his hand.

“Okay, I need two seekers!” I said, after handing him the ball and sock.

“Can they be guys?” the snitch asked. “I can’t knock down a girl!”

He had already been playing against girls, but perhaps the more physical nature of the snitch chase was different for him.

I immediately scolded him for thinking that way and purposely asked for girls to be seekers. A freshman and I took on the position and the snitch had to push and shove us, whether it was chivalrous or not. We weren’t letting him off easy. The freshman, who had proved herself to be quite formidable on the pitch, left a smear of blood on the sock when she snatched the snitch. She hadn’t even noticed that her finger, which she had hit against either a broom or the floor earlier, was bleeding. I briefly applauded her perseverance and then sent her to get a band-aid.

Our next move is to fundraise and increase interest in quidditch by selling tickets to the World Cup in school. At the beginning of the year, I was really frightened that all of my hard work had been for nothing and that quidditch wouldn’t make it this year, let alone survive after I graduated. But the last few weeks, culminating in today, have shown me that quidditch has the potential to thrive at Townsend Harris long after I leave. ●

Laurie Beckoff, 17, is a senior and the founder and captain of the Townsend Harris High School Howlers in Queens, New York.

She has been an IQA volunteer since September 2010 and hopes to study English, political science, and theatre in college.

Quidditch Quarterly • Spring 2012

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PLAYERS’ CORNER

Comparing sports: basketball vs. quidditch

By Abbie Rickard

T

he sport of basketball was first played in 1891 in Springfield, Massachusetts by Dr. James Naismith and his phys ed students. Today it is one of the most popular sports in the world, played across the globe professionally, recreationally, and at the collegiate level by men and women of all ages.

For those of you who are less familiar with basketball, I’ll give you a brief run-down of how it’s played. Two teams of five people each try to get the basketball through the opposing team’s hoop. The five positions consist of two guards, two forwards, and a center. The guards are the ball-handlers, the forwards play under the basket, and the center is typically the tallest person on the team and is often the player who grabs rebounds of missed shots. Baskets, or “field goals,” are typically worth two points each, unless the shooter makes the shot from behind the threepoint line (an arc on the floor around the basket), in which the goal is worth three points. Points can also be scored by taking foul shots, awarded to a player who has been fouled (shoved, charged, or hit) while trying to shoot the ball. Each foul shot granted to the shooter is worth one point. Players must move the ball down the court by dribbling or passing to other players; to run or walk with the ball is called “traveling,” and is not allowed.

Basketball is traditionally played indoors on courts measuring about 94 feet by 50 feet (the NBA regulation court size) and the hoops are 10 feet tall. A game is split into two timed halves, with play concluding when time runs out. Basketball players are traditionally tall, quick, and strong, and it is not a co-ed sport at competitive levels of play.

To the untrained eye, it would seem that the only two things basketball and quidditch have in common are being invented in New England and both involving scoring goals through hoops (and not even hoops set at the same angle). But there are several similarities between the two sports that many teams and players have come to recognize. Many quidditch players have drawn from skills they have learned through playing basketball to enhance their performance on the pitch.

The primary scoring initiative of moving the ball down the court/field to score, and the setup of five-on-five (or four-on-

four, if you consider three chasers and the keeper), forces the offensive team to keep the ball moving, whether through the ball handler's swift cuts and moves or through passing the ball to another teammate. Allison Gillette, commissioner and beater for Emerson College, made an exact comparison between chasers and basketball guards. Several standard movements and passes seen in basketball directly translate to the type of ball movement needed to score goals in quidditch. Rocky of San Jose State University cited the pump fake (where the ball handler lifts the ball quickly, faking an attempt to pass or score to distract the defense) as a useful strategy. Several players also named the screen, or pick-and-roll, as a good offensive move for freeing up ball movement and shot opportunities. Michael Gray, a basketball player and former quidditch coach, often encouraged this strategy.

“It forces people with the ball to constantly pass or shoot,” said Gray, “and it forces the people without the ball to constantly move around…When you bring that to a quidditch pitch it’s almost impossible to defend.”

Chelsey Davis of UC San Diego reveals how her team uses rebounding, an essential basketball skill, to their offensive advantage: “We have a play called ******* where we use two chasers to help get the quaffle through the hoop…you are purposefully creating a rebound opportunity to fool the keeper. It’s kind of top secret.”

Alternatively, many teams have found that using traditional defensive basketball strategies can work well when defending your hoops. Instead of leaving the keeper to face the opposing chaser by themselves, set up a man-to-man defense, in which each player picks a player on the opposite team to defend, or a zone defense, in which players will guard a particular area of the pitch. Depending on what kind of offense you are up against, either of these defensive strategies can help alleviate pressure from the keeper, especially if one of your beaters is preoccupied with snitch defense or a beater battle. Erin Kelly of Ball State University added that defensive slides, a move in which the defender widens their stance and uses quick footwork to cut off an offensive player, is helpful for players who have trouble

Abbie Rickard is a former chaser for Emerson College, where she graduated in December 2010. She now lives in the Bay Area where she works at a start-up (duh) and is starting to become acclimated with the Best Coast Quidditch scene.

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tackling. This is a particularly useful skill to have in a coed sport, where it is not uncommon for a girl standing at 5'3" to go up against someone twice her size. “Even if you can’t bring them down,” Kelly says, “cutting them off quickly and repeatedly turning them back in the other direction gives the beaters a lot of time to hit them.”

Some other drills for chasers, keepers and beaters are ball handling and passing drills. These come in especially handy when you can only use one hand most of the time. A common drill to hone these skills is the three-man weave, in which three players pass the ball back and forth while running down the field in an overlapping, or “weaving,” pattern. This is also good practice for handling and passing the ball while in motion.

Some players, like Benny Nadeau of Emerson College and Max Havlin of Boston University, suggest dribbling the quaffle or bludger (depending on how inflated it is) to regain control of the ball or to get out of a tight spot. Others called upon the jump shot or slam dunk (however modified) as useful skills, while Will Hack of Michigan State adds succinctly, “If you can shoot a ball through a horizontal hoop, you can shoot it through a vertical hoop.”

Though some players immediately recognized the advantages of basketball training and how it translates to the pitch, others dismissed this notion as absurd. Firstly, unlike basketball where only the tall and quick excel, quidditch is a co-ed sport and has such varied positions that players of all sizes and athletic abilities can find a position that works for them. It is also played outside on a field and allows for much more physical contact than basketball. Joel Genth of Ball State University said, “The only way to get better at quidditch is to play quidditch. When I shoot a quaffle or pass the ball, I relate it to football or baseball.” Many others named soccer as a closer comparison, presumably because

of the arena in which the sports are played, the position of goalkeeper, and some similarities in ball movement. One person also named rugby, which I’m surprised wasn’t mentioned more considering the number of times I’ve heard quidditch described as coed rugby mixed with dodgeball and capture the flag.

My fellow QQ contributor and former teammate Dan Hanson elaborates on one of the bigger differences in basketball and quidditch offensive strategies, but uses this difference to point out something we broom-mounters can learn from the ball-dribblers: “The biggest difference between quidditch and basketball is that quidditch has brooms where basketball has fouls…where in quidditch, chasers who are big and fast can take the ball down the entire field if there isn’t a bludger to stop them. But in basketball, that same type of player can’t just muscle through the defense, or they’ll be called for a foul. It forces [basketball] players to pass, develop more awareness of the playing field, and work together much more as a team.”

Cody Narveson of the University of Minnesota found the similarities between quidditch and basketball so profound he went so far as to say it would be “irresponsible not to emphasize them when training or playing.” Despite the profound differences between the two, there are surely some similarities in strategy and training that can be beneficial to any team’s success. And, according to IQA board member Jared Kowalczyk, it might not be too far off before we see more of a basketball/ quidditch crossover. “With the current lock out of the NBA,” he said, “[NBA] players are playing in intramural summer leagues and looking to play overseas. It’s only a matter of time before they infiltrate the IQA.” When that day comes, quidditch players everywhere should be ready to man up, pick-and-roll, and dribble their way to the hoop for a massive slam-dunk. ●

Spotlight on: beaters

By Leah Farrar

T

he pitch is muddy pile of bodies and brooms, a raucous mix of laugher and playful aggression that seems a hairs-breadth from pure chaos.

Amid the contestant noise of flying tackles, darting chasers, and shouts of encouragement there are a few phrases that seem to ring clear, hanging high and loud above the mayhem in a continually repeated refrain: “Beat!”

“I need a beater! Where are my beaters?!”

“Control the bludgers!”

“Ref, that was a beat!”

“Snitch! Snitch! Beaters get on the seeker!”

“I need my beaters!”

“Beat!”

“Beaters! Get on him!”

“Beat! Ref that was a beat! He’s out! It was a beat!”

“BEAT!” One of the most enigmatic positions on the pitch, the beater holds a key place in the game, and yet is often overlooked.

Lacking the point-scoring flash of the chasers, the solo heroics of the seeker, the comical antics of the snitch, and the walllike presence of the keeper, the beater can appear to fade into the background noise of the game, a lesser, defensive position that seems at times to be only a sidenote to the excitement of a match. Right up until a well-aimed bludger hits you in the side of the head, of course.

Any chaser can tell you how difficult it is to score on a goal protected by two bludger-wielding beaters, while seekers will groan in frustration when they have to contend with not just the tricky snitch, but constant hits by bludgers as well. With the ability to knock players out of play temporarily and halt the progress of a ball, the beater can control the flow of the game, challenging the other team tactically, physically, and mentally.

“I like playing beater because it requires more attention and strategy than most people think,” one Northeastern beater said during the 2011 World Cup. “Beaters have to be aware of the entire game, all the time. They have to know where the quaffle is, where the other bludgers are, where the snitch is… everyone thinks that beaters are the not-athletic ones, but really we are some of the most important people, especially when the snitch is on the field.”

“And you get to throw things at people,” added a West Coast beater with a grin. “That’s fun too.”

Other than the snitch, the position of beater is one that has undergone the greatest change in the adaptation from page to pitch. Rather than protecting their teammates from rogue, malicious, airborne bowling balls—and occasionally managing 57

Quidditch Quarterly • Spring 2012

to take out an opponent in the process—the beaters of the IQA control their own bludgers. Technically, a beater is a defensive position, something that the observer might find amusing given the position’s aggressive style of play. In quidditch, the old phrase “the best defense is a good offence” is personified by the beater—there aren’t many sports where defensive players actually get to throw things at people. Though the bludger is the only ball that doesn’t score points, it is the single most important ball in preventing points being scored, and the beater is the only position that can act offensively against the opposing seeker, a skill that is invaluable in tightly-fought games.

With three balls instead of two, and their own arms serving as the powerful force propelling the bludgers, skilled beaters can stop an entire wing of chasers and control a seeker’s access to the snitch. They act defensively in protecting their own players from the other team’s beaters, and can even play offensively—opening up holes in a defensive wall through well-aimed strikes. Perhaps most subversively, beaters are also the agents of frustration—a team constantly stopped by bludgers can get irritated and sloppy, prone to mistakes and worn-out from the extra running that comes with being beat. A team with two well-aimed bludgers under their control is a nightmare for the opposition.

With only three bludgers and four total beaters on the field, bludger control is often a key component in a team’s strategy.

Having both your team’s beaters wielding a bludger gives you versatility and better protection. During the main match one beater can protect the goal while the other assists the scoring drives, or both can act as guardians of you hoops, freeing the keeper to act as a fourth chaser. When the snitch reappears, controlling both bludgers allows you to attack the opposing team’s seeker while defending your chasers. In quidditch the team that controls the bludgers often controls the flow of play.

Given its importance to the game, one of the most interesting aspects of the position is the wide range of athletic backgrounds that beaters bring to game. Quidditch is a sport made of different styles of games—if you are really into team sports, chaser or keeper is a perfect position; if you like to run and play your own game, then seeker or snitch is appealing. Beaters fall somewhere in the middle of this divide, not quite the solo athlete and not quite part of the team sport, adaptable to all levels of athleticism and types of play.

All positions in quidditch feature a range of athletic background and training, but this range is perhaps widest in the beater. Requiring less running than other positions, and needing only the basic ability to throw something at another person (and hit them), beater is an appealing position for someone not as confident with team sports. Conversely, the highly athletic are

often drawn to the versatility of the position and its highly strategic nature—beaters have to be aware of the entire game, and their actions directly impact their team’s scoring ability.

Bludge the right chaser and stop a scoring drive, miss or hit the wrong one and they can blow past you.

For being the least ‘flashy’ position on the field, the beater has managed to stir up the most noise recently in the quidditch community. The position has been at the center of the controversy surrounding the IQA’s new gender rule, which will be voted on by official member captains this spring. The IQA’s executive leadership noted that often—though not always—the 2:5 gender ratio translated into teams where two women play beater, while men fill all other positions. Whether this divide is an issue of different styles of play, or simply women fulfilling hidden desires to throw things at people, the beater remains a singular figure in a unique sport. Indeed, the role of the beater in the gender-rule controversy is an excellent example of how beaters represent much that is central to quidditch: a unique position unlike anything else in organized sports, the beater opens doors athletically, creatively translates book to reality, and raises conversation about inclusiveness and gender relations.

Some beaters choose the position because they are not particularly fast runners or particularly good at ball-sports (while others choose the position because they are good at those things). Some like the strategy of the beater’s role, the way it crosses all divides in the game. Some are drawn to it because, frankly, you are supposed to throw things at people and have it hit them. Whatever the reason, beaters are the protectors of their team, the strong-armed powers behind the dreaded call of “beat!” and the cause of much of the chaos of a game. Beaters may not score points, but without them quidditch would not be the same. So next time you are out on the pitch, remember to run hard, play fast, and always keep your eyes open for a well-aimed bludger and that most awesome player behind it—the beater. ●