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By Elijah Stewart
In New York City, and in various other places around the world; jocks and geeks have come together to bring the silver screen to real life. Quidditch, the popular game made famous from JK Rowling’s Harry Potter series, has been adopted from the fields of Hogwarts and onto fields across the globe. According to the International Quidditch Association, there are over 300 official teams in 20 different countries.
The game is 7 on 7. And players are divided up into 3 chasers, 2 beaters, a keeper, and a seeker. The chasers score points by throwing the quaffle, a slightly deflated volleyball, into one of the opponents’ 3-ring goals while being defended against the beaters and the keeper. All the while the seeker attempts to catch the snitch who, unlike the series, is not a flying gold ball but a neutral player dressed in gold, with a tennis ball tied to their shorts.
Through regional tournaments and weekly practices to stay in shape, Quidditch players are in a constant for search legitimacy as real athletes, while fighting the stigma of playing a “nerd” sport.
“I think what people don’t realize is that they think it’s just this group of nerds, like we did in the beginning, that are just playing a sport together,” said Dylan Meehan, a player on NYU’s Quidditch team. “But once you go there and try you realize how hard it is.”
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