Quidditch for Muggles

Admit it, Harry Potter fans, you secretly (or maybe not so secretly) dream of flying around on a broomstick. You long to wear the cool wizarding robes to work and whip out your magic wand to cast a spell on that annoying prat in the next cubicle. You wish you had a house elf to clean your bathroom. And no matter how old you are, in your deepest fantasy, you are an international quidditch star.

As it turns out, that last bit may not be so far-fetched.

I did not know this until today, but quidditch teams have been popping up on college campuses in recent years. Some of the more serious players are even trying to get quidditch approved as an official NCAA sport. Oh, and the 2010 Quidditch World Cup is happening this weekend in New York. Will Middlebury College win their fourth World Cup in a row? I don’t know, Texas A&M looks strong this year.…

Alas, some aspects of the game are still too fantastic for real-world muggles. The muggle players don’t actually fly on their brooms. They run around holding the broom between their legs. This looks a little silly at first—no, wait … it looks silly, period. But once you get past the broom thing, quidditch starts to look like a real, if somewhat chaotic, sport. It beats the heck outta baseball.

Has any other real sport had its origins in a novel? Not that I know of. If you happen to know of any such sports, please tell me.

In the meantime, I’m envisioning myself drinking a pint of butterbeer while I watch the big quidditch match. Monday Night Quidditch, anyone?