By Andy Gutierrez
Murphy News Service

“Hey! Want to play Quidditch?!”

These are the words Carly Eichten remembers hearing on her first University of Minnesota tour.

For Eichten, a junior studying biology and development at the School of Biological Sciences, the Harry Potter inspired game has become a huge part of her college career.

Now, as the president of Minnesota Quidditch and the captain of the competition team, Eichten finds herself breaking through the stigma that many have of the sport.

“You run around on a broom, you’re associated with Harry Potter, but we have people on our team who haven’t read Harry Potter, haven’t watched all of the movies, they don’t care about it,” Eichten said. “I think the stigma keeps a lot of potentially really good people from playing.”

But despite hesitation, students around the country and in our own turf continue to play the Vermont-created game.

The sport, which has taken from rugby, dodgeball and tag, is composed of seven players who must remain on their brooms during the entirety of the game. The main purpose of the game is to move a volleyball called a “quaffle” down the field and eventually into goal hoops, without being knocked out by the gatekeepers, or “beaters” that use dodgeballs called “blugers.” As teams score points, the “seeker” of each team, that is, the team player in charge of chasing after the game-ending ball called a  “snitch” is constantly on the lookout for the team player who has a Velcro pouch that contains the game-ending ball, according to the USQ rules.

Sophomore Joe Reis, a mechanical engineering major at the U, says he likes the sport because of its intensity and the sense of familiarity it has created in his life.

“Really, it’s just a lot of athletic people who enjoy this sport at this point,” Reis said. “ I guess it’s the team aspect that I’m very impressed with, the sense of community.”

Reis, who often plays chaser and uses a PCV pipe as a broom on the U’s competitive team, says that the sport is a lot more intricate than people imagine it to be.

The game as he puts it, is competitive, strategic and unique.

“ Yes, it may seem complicated to explain and everything, but there is essentially one straight up goal and so many different factors to actually get to it, “ Reis said.

But despite the infancy of the sport that now has 3,500 individual members and 152 teams nationwide, Alex Benepe, the CEO of the United States Quidditch organization, remembers a time when his architecture and history of art major took precedence over what now runs his life.

“I didn’t intend for it to work out,” Benepe said. “The first game we played was really fun and began to spread all around campus, then to other schools and before we knew it we had the makings of the league.”

With more than 30 full time employees and well over 60 volunteers nationwide, Benepe and his team have created a league that is not only athletic, but also inclusive to members of different genders and identities.

“Initially the game rules were sex based,” Benepe said. “We switched to gender pretty quickly, so it was something right away because that’s what gender is, It’s your identification.“

Quidditch games have a “four maximum” rule that requires each team to have a maximum of four players that identify with the same gender on one team, according to the USQ website.

This is one of the main reasons, according to Benepe, that the sport has exploded the way it has.

And although they are not an officially licensed entity, Benepe has been in conversations with J.K. Rowling since 2008.

“I think they get a kick out of it and they see the value that it brings to Harry Potter fans,” Benepe said. “They permit us to operate because it is a nonprofit, and we’ve done a good job at staying in touch with them over the years.”

At $50 for a membership that includes the ability to play all teams and includes registration to the regional championship and the eligibility to go to world cup, Benepe see’s a bright future for the league.

“I don’t believe there is a roof on Quidditch,” Benepe said. “The next level is community teams, we want teams in every city around the country, then there is high school and then we can branch out to elementary and middle school, so if there is a ceiling, it is very very far away.”

Back at the University of Minnesota campus, the competitive team will prepare for a Spring Break tournament at Mizzou on Feb. 28.

All hesitation aside, Eichten urges everyone to give the sport a chance.

“I always tell my friends, come once and if you don’t like it, I won’t ever bother you again,” Eichten said. “ Just come once and have an open mind because it’s more athletic than you think.”

More information on USQ and the U of M teams can be found online.

Andy Gutierrez is a reporter for the Murphy News Service studying journalism.