We really do have a club for every interest at Penn State, so when I heard we had a Harry Potter club called The Three Broomsticks, I wasn’t surprised. I figured it would be one that would thin out after the hype of the seventh and final book fizzled away, but it seems that one specific part of the club is growing stronger not only at Penn State, but at other colleges: the Quidditch team. Yes, the sport played at Hogwarts complete with broomsticks and a tiny golden ball with wings has become popular at many campuses and is slowly gaining recognition at Penn State.

College Quidditch, which is played by "muggles" with broomsticks between your legs, a ball on the ground, and tennis rackets in place of fictional clubs used to whack heavier balls at other players, was founded at Middlebury College. This past November, Middlebury held the first annual Intercollegiate Quidditch World Cup Festival. The founders also wrote a 39 page Intercollegiate Quidditch Guidebook complete with rules and regulations that they claim are as true to the actual book version of Quidditch as possible, except, of course, that players can’t actually fly.

At several schools, Quidditch matches attract large crowds: Middlebury, Vassar, UMass Amherst (it was televised here). At Penn State, most people have better things to do. Here, if you’re athletic enough to be able to carry a ball in one hand and run with a broomstick between your legs using the other and not look like an idiot, you play a real sport. But if you’re willing to pretend to be a wizard on the HUB lawn, I commend you. If the trend keeps up and people actually practice enough to become good at carrying a broom in their crotch, the NCAA might have a new sport on its hands…