Who Says There’s No Such Thing As Magic

When I say my son August plays Quidditch for the University of Southern California, one of two things seem to occur. Either the person looks at me like I am carnival side show freak, or they ask, “Does August fly?” Both responses deserve a bitch slap.
However, now I can announce that the International Quidditch Association (IQA) selected August, out of thousands of players, to represent the United States at the Olympics in London! He is one of 21 athletes chosen to be on the first Quidditch Team USA. The USA will play Australia, France, and the UK in exposition games before the Olympics in July.
A surprising number of collegiate players grew up reading about the once fictional sport of Quidditch in the Harry Potter novels. The rules of Muggle Quidditch are fairly complicated, but it is described as a full contact cross between basketball, tag, rugby and dodgeball. The players don’t fly on broomsticks as J.K. Rowlings dreamed up, but the players do have to have a broom between their legs at all times.
Like in the novels, there are seven players on the pitch per team, three chasers, two beaters, one keeper and one seeker. Chasers run down the pitch passing a volleyball that serves as the Quaffle, and try to score in any of the opposing team’s three goal hoops. Beaters use dodge balls acting as bludgers to try to stop the play of players from the other team. When hit with a bludger, players must run back and touch their goal hoops before reentering play. The keeper acts as goalie. The seeker tries to catch the snitch. The snitch is a neutral player dressed in all yellow with snitch handing from his shorts. He or she can leave the pitch boundaries, and use any means to avoid capture.
Adapted seven years ago by students at Middlebury College in Vermont, the sport is now played at more than 600 universities and high schools in the country, which play throughout the year in leagues and at invitational’s according to the IQA. I went to see USC in the World Cup in New York City last November and 94 college teams from around the country attended. With growth and participation statistics like this, it is clear that Quidditch is not just a fad.
What is probably most surprising to observers, after the brooms between the players’ legs, is that Quidditch is a co-ed sport. There is a gender rule in the official handbook that states for every five players of one gender there must be two of the other. When females have a chance to equal males in a sport, they rise to the occasion and some of the best Quidditch players I have seen are female. These gals are not afraid to get tackled and all the players on the field are evaluated on skill not gender. It seems like magic or a miracle that longstanding stereotypes are being broken down so quickly in a nationally recognized sport. Maybe it is due to the origin of the sport or maybe this sport attracts a type of open-minded athlete. Either way, the gender lines are blurred in Quidditch.
When Quidditch is internationally recognized at the Olympics this summer, the world will witness the athleticism of Quidditch’s finest, and understand that this sport takes concentration, determination and skill. I am thrilled to be able to witness this historic event and honored to say that my son August is among the best in the world at this sport.
August received a full academic scholarship to USC, and I never dreamed that the summer after his freshmen year he would be selected to go to the Olympics in any sport, much less a sport that appears within the pages of fiction novels we began to read together when he was in the first grade. Now who says there’s no such thing as magic?