Halloween may have already passed, but you can still find students running around on fabricated broomsticks. Don't be alarmed - they are part of the University's brand-new Quidditch program.
Inspired by the sport imagined by J.K. Rowling in her Harry Potter series, the game of Quidditch has become an internationally recognized sport with teams popping up on college campuses all around the world.
This year, first-year College student Travis Taylor created the University's first successful Quidditch program, including an intramural league and a club team. Taylor now serves as captain and "beater" of the club team.
"[University students] tried to start one a few years ago and it didn't work," he said. "I can see why - it's a lot of work."
This is not the first time Taylor has created a Quidditch team, however. He also started one at his high school. "I was immersed in the Harry Potter experience and decided to form a league there before I got here," he said. "I read the books at Governor's School and became obsessed."
To channel that love for stories into a concrete sport, the first step was gathering equipment, Taylor said, a process which also involved some creativity and imagination. "Our original broomsticks broke, and the official brooms online were too expensive, so instead we use PVC pipe covered in duct tape," he explained. Members pay $5 in dues each semester to cover equipment costs.
The team suffered a financial setback a few weeks ago when its equipment was stolen, however.
"We left buckets on the field overnight to dry after painting them and by the next afternoon, they were gone," first-year College student Jessica Smith said. The team purchased new supplies, which she described as "pretty nice." Usually each player takes one piece of equipment back to his room because there is no other safe place to leave it.
"We will be selling knitted snitches and butter beer - a concoction of butterscotch sauce, cream soda and whipped cream - at our final game to make up for the loss," Taylor said.
Equipment is only one of the necessary requirements for a successful Quidditch team, however.
"After I gathered the equipment together, I created a Facebook group to evaluate interest," Taylor said. "There were already 100 members before we moved in [at the beginning of the school year] ... I was so amazed at how many people became dedicated and wanted to get involved, because at high school, there wasn't much interest."
Smith heard about the budding Quidditch program through a friend and joined the team. "I've loved Harry Potter since third grade," she said. "I chose to play Quidditch because I used to row in high school, and I wanted something more fun and less intense to do."
Quidditch may be less intense than rowing, but it is still a sport with formal structures and regulations. The University's teams follow the guidelines from an official Quidditch rule book found online, Taylor said.
Although Rowling's version of the sport requires magic and wizardry, the same basic principles of the game have been adapted to suit real human capability.
First-year College student Tom Hische described the game through several basic positions. "There are the keepers; the chasers, who are basically like forwards in soccer; beaters who carry 'bludgers' or dodgeballs; and seekers, who chase around a snitch," he said. "The snitch is dressed in yellow and can hide anywhere."
Smith was pleasantly surprised by the level of athleticism.
"I expected it to be more like a kid's kickball game, but it gets aggressive in a good way," she said. "It's like ice hockey on broomsticks."
The intramural teams are organized by dorms, Hische said, explaining that "New Dorms make up Slytherin, Gooch and Dillard are Gryffindor [and] Governor's School is Hufflepuff." The intramural finals will be held Nov. 20 in the Amphitheater.
Taylor said "the most dedicated players" compete with the club team, the "Whomping Wahoos."
Christopher Newport University, James Madison University, Old Dominion Univeristy, the University of Richmond, Virginia Commonwealth University and Virginia Tech also have competitive Quidditch teams, and the schools play against one another in tournaments.
The program received contracted independent organization status last week, which Taylor said will enable the group to host a Yule Ball in December.
"I'm glad to see that all of my hard work paid off with the help of a lot of dedicated people in the league," Taylor said in an email. "I put a huge amount of effort into the League, but I can't take all the credit for it. I'm amazed that we could do this as a group of first-years too! I'm just so happy that we could get this together"
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