For anyone who is acquainted with the Harry Potter world, quidditch is a familiar and even beloved word.
A quidditch club may be in Park University’s future if enough students express interest and join in. Signs have been placed around campus to drum up interest in such a club or group.
Public relations major Trevor Eiken played quidditch in high school as an after-school activity. Now, Eiken is trying to bring the sport to Park University. Other universities including the University of Missouri.
In the Harry Potter series, quidditch is the most popular sport of the wizarding world. Each team has seven players flying on broomsticks trying to score points and keep the other team from scoring. The sport uses three balls: a snitch, bludgers and the quaffle.
For a non-wizardry explanation, quidditch is a sport that is a combination of soccer, dodgeball and basketball where all members of both teams playing are required to run with a broom between their legs.
There are still seven players on each team: one seeker, one keeper, two beaters and three chasers.
The seeker is the one who is in charge of catching the snitch, which is usually someone who is dressed up in yellow or gold with a tennis ball stuffed in a long sock roaming around and hiding on campus. The game ends when the snitch is caught and whichever team caught the snitch gets 50 points.
The keeper is like the goalkeeper in soccer, trying to prevent the quaffle, or volleyball in real-world quidditch, from going through one of the three hoops on each end of the field.
The beaters are the players using dodgeballs as the bludgers to hit members of the opposing team. The chasers are those in charge of the scoring of the volleyball through the hoops.
Eiken said he enjoyed the Harry Potter books but his favorite is “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix” because it shows the leadership among the students and shows more rebellion.
“It’s magical and has mythical creatures and lots of castles,” he said. “It’s everything a nerd loves.”
Eiken said he chose Park University because it reminded him of Hogwarts – which is the Harry Potter school – because of its castle-like buildings.
Having a quidditch club on campus would provide Park students many fun opportunities, along with adding more of a Harry Potter spark to the campus.
“It’s a great chance to play a sport you may have never heard about and interact with people you’ve never met,” Eiken said.
Creative writing major Madison Butler is also interested in the club. She has never played quidditch but has watched it through Harry Potter.
“It would just be quirky to have at Park,” she said.
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