I know what you are thinking, and no, this is not a joke. I seriously play Quidditch, as in the sport from the Harry Potter universe. Before you dismiss me as some geeky J.K. Rowling fan that wishes he could be a wizard, let me clear any confusion on what exactly the sport is about. You may come to respect it (or not, but we’ll have to wait and see). The way the sport is viewed by most people does not at all represent what it really is and what it takes to play.

If you’re an avid or even a casual Harry Potter fan, you are probably picturing a bunch of scrawny college kids flying on brooms and goofing around. Quidditch, however, is far from the images seen in the movies or described in the books. We don’t use actual brooms like you would clean your back porch with, and even though my blazing speed may make it look like I’m flying, we do not actually attempt to fly... because gravity is a real thing.

Our ‘brooms’ are small PVC pipes that we have to keep in between our legs at all times, whether you hold it with your hand or your thigh is up to the player. The three hoops that are at different heights are used for scoring like in the original game. You get ten points for taking the ‘quaffle’, which is a partially-deflated volleyball and putting it through any of the three hoops. It seems simple enough, but you have to deal with the other team’s defense.

There are two designated ‘beaters’ who use partially-deflated dodgeballs to try and hit the other team’s players. If you get hit, you have to take your broom out between your legs and run back to your team’s set of hoops in order to get back into the game. For those who can avoid the ‘bludgers’ being thrown at you, you aren’t safe yet. The other team has three ‘chasers’ and one ‘keeper’ that can tackle you in order to try and get the ball back, and the keeper for a team has special privileges that allows them to better defend their team’s hoops.

It takes a lot of speed, strength, and teamwork in order to get the quaffle through one of the hoops, and the same for keeping the other team from doing so. After eighteen minutes of play, a guy with yellow shorts on comes onto the field. He has a Velcro patch on the back of his shorts that holds a sock with a tennis ball inside of it. This is the equivalent of the ‘golden snitch’ that you see in the movies.

One person on each team is called the ‘seeker’ and once the snitch comes into play, they chase the snitch down and try to grab the sock on the backside of the snitch’s shorts. Once it is caught, the game ends immediately and the team whose seeker caught the snitch gets 30 points. Whoever has more points at the end of play wins (obviously), and that in a nutshell is how Quidditch is played. It may be a bit chaotic and confusing at first, but once you watch it and pick up some pointers, it becomes an extremely face-paced and intense sport.

When I first attempted quidditch, it was last August at an open-exhibition the week before tryouts, and I was just as lost as you probably are trying to read this. I just tried to think of the game as a fancy version of rugby with elements of dodgeball, handball, and of course, with a PVC pipe between your legs. Doing this made it a little more comprehensible for me, and I learned quickly how to be successful at the sport because I ended up making the Texas A&M Quidditch team.

I had the preconceived notion that my new teammates would be just like the stereotypical Harry Potter fan, but what I discovered was quite surprising. These people were not nerdy at all (or at least not that nerdy), and in fact, a lot of them hadn’t even watched or read the Harry Potter series. We’ve had a blast this school year playing our nerdy little sport, and I’m happy I can say that I’ve made a lot of kind-hearted and unique friends through quidditch. If that makes us weird, so what? We do not worry about what others think about us, and I think that’s why it’s so enjoyable to be around these people.

UPDATE: This past weekend we went to the Southwest Regional Championship for the United States Quidditch organization in Wichita Falls, Texas, where we had to qualify for the National Championship tournament in Round Rock, Texas later this semester. We placed 2nd in the tournament and earned a bid for Nationals, so be on the lookout for the Aggies to make a run in April.