Harry Potter's Quidditch Goes National With NYC 'World Cup' This Weekend

AUSTIN, Texas Nov. 10, 2010— -- Five years ago, Alex Benepe and Xander Manshel wanted to find something more intense to do with their Sunday afternoons at Middlebury College in Vermont other than the sedate sport of bocce bowling. So the two Harry Potter fans invented the "muggle" version of quidditch.

Five years later, the wacky sport has spread to more than 200 campuses and this weekend the fourth annual "Quidditch World Cup" has grown so large that more than 60 teams will compete during the two-day tournament over Nov. 13 and 14, and the tournament has been moved to New York City.

There is even a push for the NCAA, the arbiter of college sports, to sanction quidditch as, well, a real sport.

It's real enough for the schools that college recruiters citing their attractions now routinely mention that they have a quidditch team.

Quidditch hardly looks like the serious business of college football. It's more in the league of ultimate frisbee, another sport that emerged from the free-wheeling style of non-varsity athletes and has spread throughout the country.

While quidditch players in the Harry Potter series fly around a field on broomsticks, the non-magical "muggles" like Benepe run around the field with a broomstick between their legs. Because they have to keep hold of their broomsticks, they must catch and pass the ball one-handed.

"From the first moment I played Quidditch I loved it," said Benepe, who now lives in New York.

Modeled after J.K. Rowling's popular series, matches are held on circular fields with teams of seven. There are three rings at opposite ends of the field and team chasers try to throw dodge balls or bean bags through the hoops. Bludgers try to block them by throwing balls at them, and a keeper defends the hoops. If a chaser is hit by a bludger, that player must drop the ball and freeze for several seconds -- about the time it would take for a magical player to get back on a broomstick.

The big points are scored, however, when a team's "seeker" can grab the golden snitch, often a tennis ball attached to the shorts of a player who periodically sprints through the field.

"Everything sort of clicks when the snitch is running and the seeker is chasing him. Such an adrenaline rush," Benepe said.