Watch out Harry Potter! Real Quidditch is rough
About 60 people recently rushed up and down Hometown Hero’s Park in League City competing for spots on a team that plays a sport developed from a fantastical game depicted in “Harry Potter” books and films.
Anyone who has seen “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone” remembers Quidditch, the fast-paced airborne game that involves players swooping on broomsticks chasing a ball buzzing along on tiny wings.
But the real game is a bruising affair based more on pluck and gritty athleticism than pretend re-enactments from J.K. Rowling’s books about a boy wizard.
The League City Legends is a newly-formed professional team that will compete for the first time this season in Major League Quidditch.
The team held trials this spring at the city park, drawing men and women from a 100-mile radius to vie for a place on the team’s 30-member roster.
They were put through warmups such as high-knees, shuffles and stretches. Coaches tested each person’s speed and conducted drills to test agility and balance.
The hopefuls also showed off their catching and throwing skills while mounting 38-inch “broomsticks.”
Quidditch is a full-contact sport described by the league as a mix of rugby, dodgeball, wrestling, flag football and other sports.
“It is the real deal,” said Hank Dugie, the local team’s 26-year-old founder and general manager. “Tryouts were very much like any other competitive sport that you would
see.”
The team announced its player selection May 2 on its Facebook page. Dugie said he looked for players that displayed athleticism, awareness of their skills and positions on the field and attitude.
“We are going to be spending the next three months with each other three, four, five times a week training, working out and playing games,” he said last month.
Clear Lake resident Beth Clementi, 24, is among those who gained a spot on the League City Legends. Like the team’s general manager, she is part of a generation of people who grew up with the “Harry Potter” franchise.
The book series was released in the United States in 1998. Since then, more books, video games, movies, amusement park rides and fanfiction websites have helped it become a major entertainment powerhouse.
As a real sport, Quidditch has existed just over 10 years. It was founded by students attending Middlebury College in Vermont.
Today, Quidditch has an international following that includes more than 400 colleges and community teams playing across six continents. At the collegiate level, the sport is governed in the United States by the nonprofit US Quidditch Association.
Clementi became familiar with the game while attending Texas State University, where she played for the school’s two club teams. It was her love of the “Harry Potter” books and movies that motivated her to get involved with Quidditch.
But since then, she said, the book connection “has been a very, very small part of why” she plays.
“Once you actually start playing, you kind of forget it is based on anything because it’s a unique sport,” she said. “What kept me in is the team atmosphere and the physical challenge. And, it is addictive.”
The game features a unique set of rules that involve a variety of player positions, game balls and chances to score points. Players known as chasers must throw, kick or pass a ball called a quaffle through their opposing team’s three hoops to score points. Each team also has a keeper whose objective is to prevent opponents from propelling the quaffle through their team’s hoops.
The quaffle ball isn’t the only game in play. Players called beaters use bludgers balls to try and disrupt the flow of the game by kicking out other players. That’s the dodgeball association to the game. And there are seekers that chase after and remove snitch balls from runners. In the “Harry Potter” movies and books, snitches were depicted as tiny flying golden globes. In the real world, they are tennis balls attached to players, hence the flag football comparison to the sport.
The rugby association is that Quidditch allows for “full-tackle to the ground,” Clementi said. It also is a coed game requiring no more than four players of the same gender on the field during a match. The coed aspect appeals to Clementi.
“I think it is a good sport to bring all sorts of different people together with a common goal,” she said. “Especially with the coed aspect of it. I go out there with the expectation of being tackled by guys that have 100 pounds on me.”
As for the “broomstick” each player is required to keep between their legs, think of it as the sport’s handicap, something many professional sports have, such as the requirement for dribbling in basketball.
Clementi said although the sports association with the “Harry Potter” franchise helps to draw in some people, there is a misconception that it is just a bunch of nerds playing on broomsticks.
“People that I’ve played with didn’t read ‘Harry Potter,’ didn’t know anything about it,” she said. “They just saw the sport and liked it.”
When Clementi graduated from the university last year, she moved back to the Bay Area and wanted to continue with the sport. When she heard that League City was forming a team, she decided to try out. Not only did she make the team, but she is also serving as League City Legends’ captain.
The team is a hodgepodge of players from various colleges and universities, as are all of the league’s 16 teams. Quidditch teams are limited to a roster of 21 players. Remaining team players are used as substitutes.
Many of League City Legends’ players know each other and have played with or against each other on collegiate teams, Clementi said.
The team held its first practice May 15 at League City’s Chester L. Davis Sportsplex. The team’s first home series was June 4 against the New Orleans Curse.
Major League Quidditch’s 16 teams include 15 from the United States and one in Canada. The teams feature some of the best players from collegiate and community teams. The teams are divided up geographically into four divisions — North, South, East and West. MLQ was formed to take place during the summer during US Quidditch’s offseason, said Ethan Sturm, co-chair and co-founder of the MLQ commission.
The league offers teams professional branding and management, in-depth statistics and live pre-recorded footage of all games. The organization, Sturm said, is attempting to make Quidditch more consumer-friendly.
“We want to get it to the masses,” he said.
In addition to getting a Quidditch team, League City will host this year’s MLQ championship, which will be Aug. 20-21 at Hometown Hero’s Park. City officials are hoping the expanded 16-team league will help bring in money to the area’s hotels, restaurants and entertainment venues.
The League City Legend’s general manager played a role in bringing the MLQ championship to the city. In addition to founding the team, Dugie serves on League City’s city council. He said he suggested the idea to the city’s staff, who submitted a bid in January as a chance to promote the city and bring sporting opportunities to the area. Other finalists included San Diego and last year’s host, Toledo.
League City Manager Mark Rohr said city staff worked with the city’s Hotel Occupancy Tax Board to submit and secure the bid to serve as the championship’s host. The city’s logo is on MLQ’s website as a sponsor.