Fiction Meets Reality On Field

In the magical universe of Harry Potter, quidditch is pretty much the bomb. The beaters, chasers, and seekers that populate its arenas are the coolest kids in town—flying around on broomsticks and dodging bewitched cannonballs seems like a hardcore feat of athletic prowess like no other, after all.

In the (sadly) magic-free world of Harvard, quidditch is a little bit different.

The players do still ride on broomsticks in pursuit of the quaffle or snitch, just like Harry and the gang do.

The Harvard Horntails, however, don’t get to fly through the air gracefully. Rather, one could say they’ve perhaps perfected a waddle-sprint hybrid to motor themselves around the playing field.

Bludgers provide another threat that has migrated from the wizarding world to the normal one. Getting hit by one of these bad boys is a lethal threat to the team’s offense and defense—for Harry and the gang, it usually means a broken limb or a long, spiraling plummet from broomstick to earth.

For the Crimson players, it might mean a bruise or slight sting from a dodgeball, and also the mandatory post-hit lap around the goal posts.

Ouch.

And, perhaps most important of all, the golden snitch has fluttered into the Muggle community here as well.

Instead of chasing the snitch on broomsticks, Harvard quidditch players get to chase around a tennis ball inside a sock, which is in turn bouncing around inside the shorts of a man in yellow running around a field.

Yet, jokes aside, the College does, in fact, recognize the Harvard quidditch team as an official club sport! And, if you take time to actually understand the magic-free version of the game, you’ll be quite surprised to find the level of athleticism it actually takes—just as this wary Crimson editor was.

Quidditch, as the Harvard Horntails know it, is an interesting mix of dodgeball, flag football, rugby, and basketball. Players must get the quaffle (in Harry's world, the only ball that is not bewitched) into one of three hoops (a la basketball) on their opponent’s end of the field, and as they do so they must avoid being hit by their opponents’ bludgers (dodgeballs, in actuality). If they are hit, the players must run back and loop around their own goal posts before they can rejoin the game, throwing a wrench in both offensive and defensive plays and giving the opponent some serious leverage.

And although the image of the man in yellow seems perhaps a bit ludicrous, these players—the carriers of the snitches—are nearly always trained cross country or track runners. The snitch carrier runs on and off the field and doesn’t stop until his snitch is successfully taken: this means game over.

Newly armed with knowledge of the athletics of quidditch, then, it’s safe to say that props need to be given for the Crimson’s success at the Quidditch World Cup this weekend. The team went 2-1 in group play and finished 18th of 48 teams. Tufts, our friendly neighbor, finished second.

So, next time you see some Harvard Horntails roaming around campus, be sure to give them a thumbs up!