An ASU organization is getting a fresh start with funding help from the Residence Hall Association, raising confusion, excitement and some discontent among RHA representatives.
As word of the ASU Quidditch League spreads, many students are asking how people can play the fictional game from the Harry Potter books.
Instead of riding flying brooms, the team members run with pitchforks between their legs, said Alexis Bristor, computer science freshman and president of the club.
Pitchforks sound dangerous, but the team isn’t using real gardening tools for equipment.
“For our broomsticks, we’re making pitchforks out of PVC pipe,” Bristor said. “They’re way more sturdy than any type of broomstick we could get.”
The rest of the Quidditch rules are similar to those described in J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series.
“You have seven players on a team: three chasers, two beaters, one keeper and a seeker,” Bristor said. “The keeper is like a goalie. The chasers are the ones who try to score. And the beaters throw balls — bludgers — at the other team, kind of like dodgeball.”
One major difference in the “muggle” game is the snitch, which is supposed to be a tiny magical ball that whizzes around the field.
“We obviously don’t have a flying ball, so we use a person as a snitch, and they actually run around. They can go off the field and hide,” Bristor said.
Official Quidditch rules were established by students at Middlebury College in Vermont, she said.
Students are generally excited to hear about the new Quidditch team, said Marcos Gold, RHA representative for Barrett, the Honors College.
Gold is a diehard Harry Potter fan but he said Barrett was reluctant to approve the $500 funds proposal that the Quidditch League presented to RHA on Thursday.
Every week, different groups come before RHA and try to get their funds proposals approved by the general council, which is made up of representatives from every Tempe residence hall, said Brittany Greer, RHA associate director of advertising and public relations.
The RHA general council has a fund of $10,000 per semester to distribute to groups at ASU, she said.
“A lot of people who are huge fans of Harry Potter jumped on the bandwagon and decided that it was a good organization [to fund],” Gold said. “But Barrett voted down on it — and we were one of the few people that did — because of the amount of money they were requesting.”
Since the club is so new and has only a few devoted members, Gold said Barrett wanted to postpone granting the money and see if the club would develop a stronger core of players.
Though Barrett’s RHA representatives didn’t want to fund Quidditch, the majority of the council approved the proposal, so the club got the $500 they requested.
“[Approving the Quidditch funding] was kind of risky in a sense, but at the same time, I guess we have to start up organizations like this that are really ambitious,” Gold said.
Greer said anyone can submit a proposal for funds from the general council fund.
“You get a proposal form online, and you need to fill in your name, what organization you want money for, why you want the money, and how you’re going to use it,” Greer said.
After submitting the form, groups who are requesting money attend an RHA meeting where they speak before the general council about why they want the money, undergo a question-and-answer session, and then leave the room so the council can discuss and vote on the proposal.
“I was really hoping [my proposal] would go through, because at the time we were $80 in the red,” Bristor said. “I just went in with the best possible case scenario with $500, and they gave it to me.”
Now that the club has enough money to get off the ground, Bristor said she and her teammates will be able to purchase equipment, uniforms and fliers to advertise for the club.
“Once we get our equipment and we’re able to really play this game the way it’s supposed to be played, then I feel like we’ll be more of a legitimate club and more people will want to come play,” she said.
Since last year’s Quidditch president left the club with nothing for Bristor to continue with, she said she had to start from scratch.
Bristor said she hopes to attract dedicated team members so that they can travel to other colleges and play their Quidditch teams.
“I’d definitely like to have 15 members that are always there,” she said. “Because I’m a freshman, I want to keep it all four years. I’m going to try to keep building it every year and make it stronger.”
Reach the reporter at kkfrost@asu.edu.
