What is this, U of C?
In an apparent effort to out-geek Ultimate Frisbee, several Northwestern students are organizing an athletics team inspired by the game of Quidditch.
Inspired by the broom-flying, ball-whopping and snitch-catching sport featured in Harry Potter novels and films, NU's version -- technically called Muggle Quidditch -- requires only that the player have a broom and an aversion to attracting the opposite sex.
“We’re gathering equipment and organizing meetings and practices and all that,” said NU sophomore Marc Burgeois, to the Sun-Times. “We should start having pickup games in the next two weeks or so.”
Burgeois says he'd like to assemble a team lonely enough good enough to sign up for the Intercollegiate Quidditch Association.
Unlike in fantasy Quidditch, Muggle Quidditch players need only hold a broom between their legs while running up and down the field. With three goals on each side and four balls being played at the same time, the game can get quite messy.
“It's also a contact sport, so it gets pretty intense,” Burgeois told the Sun-Times. “You can’t tackle somebody, but you can hip check and run into people while trying to steal the quaffle.”
For the uninitiated, that’s a ball in wizard-talk.
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Burgeois does most of his recruiting through Northwestern Muggle Quidditch team’s Facebook page, which currently has 83 members.
The first Quidditch team was put together in 2005 at Middlebury College in Vermont. What was supposed to be just a game for Harry Potter fanatics quickly turned into a school league with more than 400 students signing up for the spring and summer tournaments. That led to the creation of the Intercollegiate Quidditch Association, with 65 member colleges.
Once the Northwestern muggles get their act together, that number might soon rise to 66.
