Northwestern's Quidditch Pitch

By Marcus Gilmer in Miscellaneous on Nov 9, 2009 6:20PM

Even with Northwestern's football team bowl eligible after a big upset win over Iowa, some (more bookish) folks may be looking for a non-football opportunity. Lucky for you, those clever NU students have the answer: Quidditch. Yes, Quidditich: the (until now, apparently) imaginary game from the Harry Potter universe. The Sun-Times spoke with NU student Marc Bourgeois who's in charge of getting the Quidditich team up and running: "We're gathering equipment and organizing meetings and practices and all that. We should start having pickup games in the next two weeks or so." Bourgeois hopes to get NU's team involved with the Intercollegiate Quidditch Association - yes, it's real - to compete against teams from other schools across the country.

Here's a brief look at the game: Each player needs a broom. One hand must be kept on the broom between your legs at all times as players run around trying to throw a slightly deflated volleyball, known as the "quaffle," past a goalie and into one of three goals, which are essentially Hula Hoops attached to PVC piping -- all this while trying to avoid being hit by rubber kick balls, or "bludgers."

"It's also a contact sport, so it gets pretty intense. You can't tackle somebody, but you can hip check and run into people while trying to steal the quaffle," said Bourgeois, who added that players wear cleats -- and mouth guards and athletic supporters are recommended.

Sure, there's an urge to yell, "NERDS!" at things like this. But that'd be completely misguided and hypocritical of us - many members of the Chicagoist staff have read and are fans of the Harry Potter books. Example: several of us noticed the Sun-Times article completely fails to mention the Golden Snitch, the most important element of a Quidditch match. And as Marc points out, "The people who are in college now are really the ones who grew up in the prime time of Harry Potter." So go for it, Wildcats. Don your capes, grab your bats, and ride those brooms. We just don't expect the Northwestern-UCLA Quidditch highlights to appear in the Morning Box Score.