The Second Year #QuidditchTurnsTen
For the final days we’re going to delve more into people and end with a recap of that historic first match to mark the ten-year anniversary. As you may have noticed from the featured image, today is in honor of Alex Benepe, and 2007 was the first year that he began to take some more control on the direction of Quidditch. Creator Xander Manshel decided he didn’t want to be in charge since he began to concentrate on his journey to become a real-life Albus Dumbledore. Rainey Johnson, the original Snitch, worked alongside Benepe to continue developing the legacy of incredible Snitch characteristics.
Benepe had played in the Middlebury league during its first year but stopped playing after taking the executive position except for a few scrimmages. He also played the occasional Snitch and had the perfect words to describe a first game.
There’s a certain amount of child-like joy. Just uninhibited joy. Where you don’t think about what anyone thinks about you. And it happens to everyone it touches.
There appeared little he was unwilling to do for the sport. From driving around in a van full of Quidditch equipment for a week to spread the game to none of the colleges they appeared at, to moving home and having a gracious enough family to store Quidditch supplies and people in the lead-up to the New York World Cups, there wasn’t a time that he kept to only his own ideas, always taking into account better ideas that people presented.
Many leagues and people would have crumbled over some of the stresses that the IQA (now US Quidditch) was exposed to, but the dedication shown by the team that Alex was fortunate to be surrounded by has allowed the world to know a new sport. A sport that brings together all types of people. A sport that breaks down social barriers that you never even thought of. A sport that can have your rivals be your best friends.
In this second year there was no major media, no major events, just a large number of friends who wanted to continue playing something so extraordinarily fun that they would brag to friends from other colleges on their summer break. And then it took just one of those friends to start their own team at another college to begin the massive momentum behind this sport. So when did you get caught up in it all?
