Quidditch of Harry Potter fame comes to Tufts
Photo by Molly Newman
The Tufts Quidditch squad on the quad.
Every college tries to market a magical student experience, and the Harry Potter Society at Tufts University is picking up the slack. The Society recently launched a club for Quidditch, a game featured in the fantasy series that has caught on like wildfire at local colleges and universities.
In the game, offensive players called Chasers fire a Quaffle - or volleyball - into a hoop, which Keepers guard on both sides. And sharpshooting Beaters can throw Bludgers - dodge balls - at the Chasers, who must drop their Quaffles and run back to their goals when hit.
Each team also has a Seeker, whose only task is to capture a flag attached to the Snitch - no, not Whitey Bulger, but a neutral player clad in yellow from head to toe. The game ends when a Seeker snags the tassel, and the captor's team receives 30 points.
While Potter characters play on flying broomsticks, the students remain earthbound, though their costumes include brooms.
About 20 Society members attended last weekend's practice - the club's second - on campus. Sophomore Auriana Renee Jimenez, the Society's assistant headmaster, watched from the sidelines but plans to play next weekend.
"I can't wait to get out there," she said, adding that students love the game and the series because the title character speaks to them.
"We just sort of as a generational group feel pulled to his story," Jimenez said. "Growing up, I always loved Harry Potter. He always seemed to be someone at my stages of development who was doing OK."
The squad does not have club status, meaning there's little to no money for road games. But if they get a little more cash next year, a huge event awaits - the annual World Cup tournament at Middlebury College, sponsored by the Intercollegiate Quidditch Association.
Twenty-five colleges will compete in this year's tournament on Sunday, including Boston University, Emerson College, Harvard, and UMass-Amherst.
And players at Tufts - where administrators expressly banned sex in the presence of roommates this year - may have an added incentive to raise funds for the trip.
"You have guys tackling girls and girls tackling guys," said Alex Benepe, commissioner of the Quidditch Association. "College students are always into the cutting edge, or new or crazy ideas, and this definitely fits into that category."
The newly formed Tufts squad would be crazy to tangle with the Quidditch team at Amherst, according to UMass sophomore and club treasurer Chung Kim.
"I think we'd crush them," Kim said. "I know how it is starting a team, everything is a bit willy nilly once you start to grow. But honestly, I think we can crush them."
Stacy Rush, cocaptain of the Harvard team, said the Crimson would also roll over Tufts.
"I honestly don't think they'd have much of chance," said Rush, a junior studying abroad at Harvard. She said that she came to Cambridge mainly to play Quidditch, and her team has a special weapon.
"Our broomsticks are made to fly," she said.
But Junior Molly Newman, headmaster of the Tufts Society and a Quidditch player, said in an email that she'll battle all comers, magic broomsticks or not.
"I say, bring it on!" she wrote.
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