Tech’s Quidditch Club held its first scrimmage against East Tennessee State University March 31.
“It was a learning experience,” Kellie Davis, sophomore co-president, said. “We learned what other teams were going to be like and how to work together as a team.”
The club will also scrimmage against Middle Tennessee State University and Belmont University at the end this semester.
“MTSU started about the same time we did,” Davis said. “They’ve had the same amount of time to prepare. Belmont looks very strong, so we’ll see how rough it gets.”
The club plans to have quidditch included in next year’s intramural sports.
“We really want to get more people out here to understand the game,” Davis said. “We want more people out here watching us so they don’t say, ‘what is quidditch and how is it played?’ and don’t think that we’re actually flying on brooms.”
Davis said the game is rougher than she thought it would be.
“When we talk about quidditch, a lot of people think we might just be out here being silly, throwing a ball back and forth,” Davis said. “But this is really a contact sport, very physical. We’ve had our first significant injury, which was a broken finger.
“We’ve had twisted ankles and some crutches, bruises and cuts and scrapes. We really want people to understand that we’re serious about this and that it’s a legitimate sport.”
Davis said the club plan to on hold more scrimmages in the fall.
“We’ll maybe bring Belmont and MTSU down here,” Davis said. “We’ve heard Tusculum has a team. I’ve also heard that UT Knoxville has a team, but we’ve had trouble finding how to contact them. But we’ll try to get them here and have a good home game.”
The club’s long term goal is to make it to the Quidditch World Cup, which is held every year in November.
“We’d love to get out there and play with all these big colleges like Harvard and Louisiana State and Texas Tech and Florida,” Davis said. “We’ve got some big competition with some big people on their teams. But I’m very proud of our team and what we’ve accomplished. We’ve gotten so much better since our first practice.”
For more information about the Quidditch Club, search for Tennessee Tech Quidditch on Facebook.
