Bludgers and broomsticks are now being added to Ashland University’s sports equipment, as Quidditch becomes a popular club sport on campus. 

Junior Lisa Kilper was one of the founding seven members of AU’s Quidditch team. The team was founded in the fall of 2011 by two graduates and five other students. Kilper said the process of getting the team and sport approved took a while, but they didn’t do it alone. 

“I know we had a lot of help from other schools, like BG (Bowling Green),” she said. “They came and taught us how to play pretty much. We aren’t signed up with the IQA because we don’t have that much funding yet but this year we did start to get funding.” 

The International Quidditch Association, the IQA, was founded in 2010 and annually hosts about 25 events which include nine regional championships, the World Cup, International Open, Global Games, and QuidCon. 

Although Quidditch is not a division collegiate sport, “Muggle Quidditch” was created in 2005 in Middlebury College in Middlebury, Vermont. Now, Quidditch is played at over 300 universities and high schools throughout North America, Australia, and Europe. The game is adapted from the popular Harry Potter series, and although participants can’t enact the exact game from the novel, brooms are still a necessary part of play.

All seven players must have a broom between their legs throughout the entire game at risk of a foul. The teams consist of three chasers, two beaters, one keeper, and one seeker. 

In the novels, the snitch is a golden ball that flies throughout the field. In this realm of Quidditch, the snitch is contained by the snitch runner – a nonaffiliated team member who holds the snitch and roams the field, or in some cases, the entire campus until the seeker finds him or her. 

This concludes the game. The sport is year-round and also adapts to “snow Quidditch” in the winter.

Even though Quidditch isn’t the most popular sport on campus, AU’s team does still compete against other schools. 

“We go to tournaments all over the place,” Kilper said. “Every year there’s the Ohio Cup which we will be going to at the end of October. That’s all the schools in Ohio pretty much.” 

This year, AU’s team has about 14 players total. According to Kilper, this number has been increasing. 

“It’s more than we had last year, and a lot more than we had the first year,” she said. 

Kilper said the first seven founders decided to start Quidditch at AU based on their love for the Harry Potter novels. She said that after learning about “Muggle Quidditch,” they went through the process of making it a reality. 

“We’re just big Harry Potter fans and we just wanted to play it,” she said.  “We learned that it’s a real thing adapted to people and it’s really actually super fun.”