[Editor’s Note: This article is part of a series, Epoxomise: How “Harry Potter” Cast a Spell on a Generation. Epoxomise is a “Harry Potter” spell which bonds two object together.]
As players run around with white sticks between their legs and chase a player with yellow shorts on, it is hard to compare the fantastical game of quidditch from the “Harry Potter” series to what onlookers see on the field.
“Well, obviously, we don’t fly,” Katelynn Moranha said. “That’s one of the most asked questions I get when I talk about quidditch.”
Ground quidditch is similar to what is in the books and movies but is clearly adapted for muggles, the junior business management major and vice president of the Texas Tech Quidditch Club said.
Moranha explained the game is similar to other sports, such as soccer and dodgeball. The object of the game is for chasers to get a ball through one of the three rings standing at your teams’ end of the field, while beaters tag opponents with other balls. A “snitch,” the student wearing yellow shorts, runs around the field during some rounds of the game, evading being caught by a seeker.
The snitch is a player wearing special shorts that identify his position.
“The one in ‘Harry Potter’ is physical in a different aspect,” Moranha said. “We’re more like person-to-person contact, where they’re more like ‘let’s hit somebody with a bludger until they fall off.'”
The Tech Quidditch club has been active since the early 2000s. The team is one of hundreds across the world. Tech Quidditch is a sports club that is part of the Department of Recreational Sports. Moranha said there are about 25 regular players at Texas Tech.
Moranha said she likes the physical sport because it is co-ed, meaning men and women play on the same team as equals. She said she has made many friends while on the team and loves the sport.
Shane Lum, a sophomore electronic media and communication major, said he got involved with the sport through friends. He said he is not even a big fan of the “Harry Potter” series.
“Well, I mean, I watched the movies,” Lum said. “I wasn’t super ‘Harry Potter’ obsessed, but I thought the movies were cool.”
When asked whom his favorite character in the ‘Harry Potter’ series was, Sean Townsend, a junior political science major, had a hard time answering.
“Uh, I mean, I’m not all into ‘Harry Potter,'” Townsend said, “but I guess Harry.”
Although some players come to the sport because of their love for the boy who lived, Moranha said, most simply enjoy the game.
“I definitely read the books and watched the movies, but I didn’t come to play the sport because of it,” Moranha said. “It was more of I found out that it was a physical sport and more like rugby and dodgeball, than just running around with a bunch of ‘Harry Potter’ fans. But, there are some of us that are still in it, but we don’t stay because we’re ‘Harry Potter’ fans.”
The Tech Quidditch team is preparing for the U.S. World Cup in South Carolina in April. To help them get there, you can donate to the team’s GoFundMe campaign.
About Sarah Self-Walbrick
