News to Us, JMU Has a Quidditch Team
The magic of Google alerts helps me keep track of JMU sports related stories. Unfortunately with the limited coverage of the Dukes, those alerts mostly just point me back to this very blog, so they’re not exactly eye-opening. Recently however, I received an alert that prompted me to go read this article about the newly formed JMU Quidditch team. That’s right, a quidditch team. Quidditch, the “sport” that Harry Potter and his wizard friends play. And this isn’t unique to JMU, it’s supposedly quite a trend.
I’m not one to judge when it comes to this sort of stuff. I’ve read all the Harry Potter books and I’m pretty geeky. I blogged about the friggin CBI Tournament for pete’s sake. That alone makes it virtually impossible for me to call anyone else’s chosen hobbies into question. Plus, from the way it was described in the books, quidditch does sound like it would be a fun game to play. You know, provided it was real and not a completely made up game played by wizards flying around on brooms. The game JMU plays seems to be more of a mutant team handball played while holding a broom however. Semantics aside, the team plays in the Virginia Quidditch League and competes against teams from other schools like Virginia Tech, ODU, and VCU.
Luckily, I found a couple videos of the JMU team in action to shed some light on things. This first video is of the JMU team practicing and this second one is a profile of a recent match between VCU and JMU. Again, I’m not one to judge, but it’s impossible for anyone to watch those videos and not come to the same glaringly obvious conclusion. There isn’t any getting around it. I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, but it’s got to be said. VCU’s quidditch facilities are far superior to JMU’s. They’ve got real goal posts and everything in Richmond and all they have in Harrisonburg is a couple kids holding up laundry baskets. It’s pathetic. How is JMU even supposed to compete? And I imagine it’s only going to get worse once VCU pumps some of its Final Four money into the quidditch program.
All the more reason why kegs should be back on campus.
What are you saying tedward?
You would need to drink a keg to make that quidditch player look decent.
This is an outrage!! Ron Weasly is pissed. You hear me pissed!!
As part of the JMU Quidditch team itself, the ONLY reason we have people holding up laundry baskets is because we are a brand new team. And for anyone who dares thinks this sport is a joke should come to practice and play for once. It’s just as tough and rough as any contact sport out there.
I’m on the Quidditch team and on behalf of the rest of the team it means a lot that you took the time to write this. We hope to get more membership next semester, so tell your friends about the team and get them to join (and join yourself if you can). The game is totally fun!!
One correction, we haven’t played ODU yet because they dropped out of the tournament at the last minute.
And fun fact, we have won two games so far, one against CNU and the other was VT (just saying… xD).
@Chris, I’m glad you appreciated the post and good luck with the rest of your season!
Quidditch is awesome. ‘Nuff said