Issue date: 11/18/09 Section: Opinion

Media Credit: Osa Okundaye [Click to enlarge]

For many Aggies, Big 12 sports are the focal point of their college career. Weekends are scheduled around which schools are playing ball, and parties exist for the sole purpose of celebrating victories. But there is a sport on our campus that should be just as revered, especially with the impressive show our athletes exhibited at the world championship. The sport is quidditch.


Honestly, when I first heard about our University having a quidditch team I thought it was a joke. How would that even physically work? Can they fly? Do they wear Harry Potter-esque uniforms? Are brooms involved? All of my questions were answered by reviewing www.collegequidditch.com. Running around with brooms between their legs and chasing a character in a yellow uniform called the "snitch," competitors try to score points by throwing a rubber ball through any of three goals positioned at the ends of the field. The team to catch the snitch first and accumulate the most points wins.


The Intercollegiate Quidditch Association was founded at Middlebury in 2005. The Vermont liberal arts college adapted the rules and regulations of the game from the fictional world of J.K. Rowling's "Harry Potter" series and formed a team. Their first game was played against Vassar College in November 2007. Since then, the Association has spread to college campuses across the nation, as well as several foreign countries. Not only has Texas A&M formed our own quidditch team, we also participated in this year's World Cup, described as "a cross between the Superbowl and a medieval festival" by the official Web site of the Association.


Katherine Nolden, junior international studies and history major, was one of the competitors that went to the World Cup held in Vermont at Middlebury.


"We were the team that travelled the furthest to play in the tournament and were one of the first teams to score against Middlebury, the team that started it all," Nolden said. "Players on the team were sent through the brackets and made their way up, incurring injuries including a badly bruised and bloodied nose."


Quidditch is more of a full contact sport than one would first imagine.

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