Editor’s note: The following is an installment of The Seahawk’s newest sports beat “Cooper’s Club,” which spotlights one UNCW club sports team per week. This week’s featured club is the quidditch team.

For fans of J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter, quidditch is nothing short of a dream sport. The idea of playing a game with similarities to soccer, basketball and American football, except on broomsticks, is something one could only wish the laws of physics would allow in this universe.

Fortunately, students at UNC Wilmington have the opportunity to get a taste of this fantastical sport. Although not on broomsticks, UNCW’s quidditch club allows students to experience the game in a fun fashion that comes close to the sport that Rowling detailed in her books.

Better yet, no one has to be a Harry Potter fan to join; only a desire to explore an unconventional team sport.

“We’ve had players on our team before who have never read the books or seen the movies,” said sophomore Bobby Beare, a junior. “We are a sports club, not a Harry Potter fan club, so anybody can join.”

“There isn’t anything Harry Potter-related that we do,” said junior Dana Raimondo, the team’s president. “We just got the rules from the books.”

While the team has made a few changes to the rules as they appear in the series, the game played at UNCW is rather faithful to the books. The positions include three chasers, two beaters, a keeper and a seeker on each of the two teams.

A chaser’s job is to score points by passing the quaffle, a slightly deflated volleyball, through the hoops. Instead of flying balls, the beaters use three slightly deflated dodgeballs. These are called bludgers.

Each team plays either defense or offense, and the beaters’ main goal is to keep the quaffle from passing through the hoops. If the quaffle goes through the hoops, the team earns 10 points.

The keeper has all the same abilities as a chaser, except their main objective is to act as a goalie, standing guard on the hoops to prevent the quaffle from going through.

The team notes that the hoops are specifically designed for quidditch. Each hoop is a different height and is made of piping materials.

18 minutes into the game, the seekers are released. Their objective is to catch the snitch, which is a ball that remains attached to the back of an extra player’s pants as he runs around the field trying to avoid the seeker. The seeker’s goal is to grab the ball without it falling down.

Acquiring the snitch ends the game and scores the team 30 points. (In the books, it is 150 points; the leaders of the quidditch club have changed this rule so that catching the snitch does not ensure an automatic win.)

The team takes their sport very seriously, particularly in the fashion in which they begin each practice.

“We treat it like any other sport,” said Beare. “We warm up, stretch; we’ll work on different skills based on each skill that we play. Chasers work on passing and shooting; beaters mainly work on throwing the bludger accurately and dodging it.”

The team is very tightly knit and hangs out with each other frequently outside of practice.

“We’re trying to get a movie night together,” Raimondo said. “Before fall break we had a board game night and got to know each other better. We get dinner after every practice and we ride together for tournaments. Bonding is something I’m trying to focus on this year, and a lot of us are friends outside. Then players bring in their friends and that’s how the team usually grows.”

The quidditch club has a total of 21 players, with 16 regularly showing up to each practice. The team is co-ed, with 11 male students and 10 females.

The leaders of the club expressed that having a team means fostering teamwork and camaraderie.

“We’re all the way at college and it’s really nice to have a group of people you know that you can have around,” said senior Bailey Murray, the club’s vice president.

“It’s nice to have someone to talk to if you need it,” said Raimondo. “We have a few Facebook pages so we can keep in touch.”

The team participates in approximately one tournament per month with other schools, where eight to twelve teams will get together and compete on a Saturday. These start with each team playing another team in its pool, followed by a bracket play where the winners of each pool compete.

The quidditch team has existed for only a few years, and it is Beare’s goal to keep it going for even longer.

“My sister went to UNCW and tried to start the club in 2009 and it never happened,” said Beare. “After she graduated, some people actually started the quidditch team, so I joined because I thought it would be cool that I had the chance to do it. I’ve been playing sports my whole life and very few people have actually heard of quidditch, let alone played it, so it’s an opportunity to try something very different.”

The quidditch team meets Monday’s 5:30 to 7:30, Thursday’s 5:30 to 6:30, and Sunday’s 1:00 to 3:00, at the Gazebo Fields. They are UNCW’s least expensive club sport, charging $20 for dues and $20 for a jersey. To join, show up to a practice, talk to one of the club leaders, and fill out a waiver.

Sean W. Cooper can be found on Twitter @SWWCoop. Any tips or suggestion should be forwarded via email to [email protected]. For video updates from The Seahawk, subscribe to our YouTube channel.