Quidditch

We all have friends who gather on their couches to watch the Super Bowl, Stanley Cup and World Series. I just finished watching a 15-inning game of college softball on ESPN. But how many people do you know who get off that couch and shoot some hoops on their own? There’s probably a handful, but for many of us, finding an adult community sports league can be intimidating.

Here are a few good reasons to join an adult sports league, even if you don’t consider yourself an athlete:

#1: Social Exercising

I don’t know what’s worse: the Freshman 15 or the College Degree’d 30. Whatever workout habit you may have had built into your class schedule, that luxury is gone. Now, you are on-the-go all the time. Eating from the drive-thru, or at your desk, or on your couch after 8 pm. Who wants to force themselves to dedicate time to exercising when you barely have time to breathe?

Recreational sports are an easy answer. Depending on the sport, the exercise can be vigorous or moderate, but you still get to meet new people no matter what level of play. Depending on the league you are in, you might even have practices with bonus exercise.

Additionally, you might find your company has a work league or work team. I can tell you right now, playing softball basically got me hired out of my internship and into my first big-person job. My soon-to-be boss and I warmed up and started chatting and, a year later, I graduated and had my first job (because they really needed my help in Center Field… I mean… in the office).

#2: Try something new!

Remember when we were little and your parents signed you up for things like soccer, tennis, basketball, theater camp, and piano? By the time you reached 14, you probably had to start specializing—pick one after-school activity or pick one sport.

But life isn’t over yet! Want to learn play golf? Sign up for a beginner’s course and bring some friends to the driving range. Did you always want to learn to play lacrosse but never could find a league as a kid? Ask your local league if they accommodate beginners. There are so many people who try new sports after they leave school, and it ends up being a center of their social life. I know people who have learned Ultimate Frisbee and Curling. Heck, go read Melissa’s article about Quidditch and tell me you don’t want to try it, too!

Don’t worry if you aren’t that good right away. If you like the league and team, you’ll get better with time

#3: Rekindle a love of sports.

While my primary form of exercise is running, my first love will always be softball. I played in work leagues and slowpitch leagues, but it just wasn’t the same as the fastpitch I grew up playing.

But now, I play and manage two fastpitch teams and it’s my favorite hobby. It keeps me sane. Both my teams are in an 18+ women’s league with players at every level. I even got to go to a tournament in Las Vegas—seeing 12 teams from 4 different states compete against each other reminded me why I love this game.

Now a few tips to find a sporting league for you!

The two best places to find a league are through your work and through your city’s parks and recreation department. Many major corporations have company leagues or company teams sponsored through their employee activities program. Additionally, your city has adult sports leagues (mine varies from $40-90 per player per season), just like the ones for kids.

If you can’t find leagues through either of those, there are two private companies that run leagues across the United States: Zogsports and Planet Social Sports. Both these leagues generally offer multiple sports a year and usually make deals with local bars to host the athletes for post-game drinks. ZogSports also raises money for charity and offers volunteer opportunities to players in the league (it was founded in NYC in the wake of 9/11).

Lastly, if you are looking for an obscure sport, I highly recommend using Sportsvite or Meetup. Sportsville a Facebook-type community for sports lovers to find teams or find players for their teams.

Level of Competition

Make sure you join a team in the correct level of competition and find a patient manager. You don’t want to play on a team that plays to win if you are just there to have a good time! I can’t stress enough how important a good manager with the right vision can be to your experience. You don’t deserve to be screamed at for a simple mistake, especially when you are paying to play in this league. I know it sounds silly, but sometimes people don’t have the same priorities.

Photo by Meaghan Morrison

There is a surprising literary phenomenon creeping into the rather exclusive world of sports. Over the last six years, a new game has begun infiltrating the country. It started on college campuses and has quickly been adopted by high school and community teams alike.

This so-called sport may seem typical enough at first glance, albeit with some borrowed equipment. Goalpost? Check. Dodgeball? Check. Volleyball? Check. Broomstick? Chec—wait…What?

Meet Quidditch.

If you catch yourself staring and wondering if that is merely a made-up word… technically, it is. But this is a word that has become a part of the world’s vernacular by way of a little wizarding franchise known as Harry Potter. Now, book-loving Potterheads, athletes, and numerous people in between have joined forces to bring this fictional sport into a very real arena.

It doesn’t take long to realize that this isn’t your average sport—Wizard Quidditch is typically played while flying on a broomstick. Since mere Muggles (that’s “non-wizards” for Potter newbies) can’t actually fly, the game has been adapted to suit the needs of its fanbase. Muggle Quidditch is a game where two seven-player teams charge each other, while straddling broomsticks, and try to throw balls through goals typically constructed out of hula-hoops. It sounds utterly ridiculous but it’s also ridiculously fun.

In Quidditch, the offense is made up of three “Chasers” who try to throw a volleyball (called a “Quaffle”) through the three hoops on either side of the field. Two “Beaters,” on defense, try to stop this by throwing dodgeballs (or “Bludgers”) at the opposing team. Each team has one “Keeper” who serves as a goalie, guarding the hoops.”

But perhaps the most exciting part of this crazy sport is the role of each team’s “Seeker” and the sole “Snitch.” In the Harry Potter universe, the Snitch is a little gold ball that flies around the field and surrounding area, and must be captured by a Seeker to conclude the game. The team whose Seeker catches the Snitch receives a set amount of points, which may or may not be enough for that team to win. In Muggle Quidditch, the Snitch has been replaced by a ball at the bottom of a sock that has been tucked into the waistband of a person (dressed in gold) who runs off the field at the start of the game. From there, the two Seekers must scour not only the field, but the entire park or campus, to capture the elusive Snitch. There is no place too obscure for the person serving as Snitch to hide. I have spotted a Snitch up in a tree and chilling on top of an exceptionally tall dumpster. They are often seen careening over spectators and even performing acrobatics to avoid being caught.

But probably the greatest thing about Quidditch is its allure for Harry Potter fans, both athletically-inclined and not, who are able to participate in a sport that blurs the lines between fiction and reality. Despite living my entire life with an utter apathy for sports, I finally found cause to join my first sports team. I spend my free time practicing at a local park where people routinely stop, puzzled, to ask us what we are playing or shout out to us, “Is that Quidditch?”

And while we have a lot of fun, we also play hard. There have been plenty of concussions, broken bones, twisted ankles, and assorted other minor injuries, but we keep playing because we love it. Because we want to keep the story of Harry Potter alive. And we do it in the name of a book series that convinced even the most uncoordinated of us that we, too, can fly.

To learn more about Quidditch, or to find a team, visit www.InternationalQuidditch.org.

Photo by Mindy Rice

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Sporting 101: Quidditch