Beaters, chasers, headbands, and a thrifted pink panther named Balthazaar. Oh, and don’t forget your broomstick. These are all integral parts of Brandeis’ quadball club team.
In the last edition of The Hoot, I set out to investigate the stigma surrounding ultimate frisbee. This journey involved an interview with Brandeis Tron’s Nathaniel “Atlas” Friedman, where he defended the top-tier athleticism of practitioners of his sport and gave some insight of what the men’s team here on campus is like. Over the course of our conversation, Friedman brought up quadball and leveled some hefty criticism of his fellow Brandeis club team. His comments included calling out practitioners of quadball claiming that their “practice” (Friedman put air quotes around that word) on Chapels’ Field is “a disgrace to everyone” and “Quadball puts a shame to club sports anywhere.” To get a response to these inflammatory comments and gain greater insight into the world of quadball, I sat down with Golan Altman-Shafer, a member of Brandeis Quadball’s E-Board.
When I first sat down with Altman-Shafer, he was meticulously reviewing film from a previous day’s match against Brown. Brandeis Quadball does indeed have frequent games and biannual tournaments, he would explain to me. Though he was itching to get a chance to respond to Friedman’s comments, I started our conversation by asking Altman-Shafer about some of the basic principles of quadball and his own background in the sport.
He told me he first started playing when he got to Brandeis last fall and that this late start to the game was not too difficult because quadball is “really accepting of new athletes who are just starting their athletic journey. So it’s been really cool to come learn the rules of the game, because everyone starts when they go to college.” He further described quadball as “a bastion of equality, of rights, of promoting athleticism for all.”
Altman-Shafer then moved on to naming quadball’s four positions. His own position, chasers, are clad in white headbands and are more offensive-focused players, with the aim of trying to get the volleyball through one of the opposing team’s goals. The keeper, wearing a green headband, is a hybrid player whose main focus is on defending his own team’s hoops—a sort of goalie—but also can transition to an offensive player when their team is on the attack. Beaters, adorned with black headbands, serve as the defenders, using dodgeballs to force opposing players to return to their own side and prevent them from scoring. Finally, there’s the seeker, a player wearing a yellow headband whose sole objective is to catch the snitch, a referee with a flag attached to the back of his shorts, who enters the game at halftime and runs around with this flag that the seekers must try to grab.
There’s one more crucial aspect of quadball which is, of course, the question of the broomsticks between their legs. This is perhaps the biggest impediment to the masses recognizing quadball as a ‘real sport.’As Altman-Shafer told me, the broomstick is actually just a PVC pipe and their presence in the game “stems from quadball being the adaptation of Quidditch from the Harry Potter series.” While seeking to distance the sport from, and place it at odds with the franchise’s controversial author, J.K. Rowling, Altman-Shafer continued by highlighting how this specialty plastic pipe fosters equity within the match, saying, “It gives the offense some disadvantage,” as it limits their ability “to run and move as fast as possible.” The broomstick is “a great balancer between people who are really athletic and for people who are less athletic.” Thus creating an “equal burden for everyone.” When asked about his own experience with the hindrance of having to keep the broomstick between his legs, Altman-Shafer responded “ It’s actually quite simple. I think it’s more intuitive than many people think. When you put the broom between your legs, it takes a little bit just to remember that it’s there, but as long as you can squeeze your thighs, then you can run anywhere.”
Those are the fundamentals of the game, but one thing that sets Brandeis Quadball apart from other quadball teams is their unofficial mascot: Balthazar the pink panther. Altman-Shafer told me about the symbolism behind Balthazar. He was in a clothing store where he came across a one dollar bin when, as he explained, “this dirty, ragged pink panther who needed my help called to me. Balthazar. I had to rescue him. I bought him on the spot. I took him home, put him in the wash. He was good as new right afterwards. And truly, there’s a kind of symbolism there, being willing to accept anyone and turning them into a quadballer. In the same way that we took dirty old Balthazar in the one dollar bin and turned him into the mascot that we love today.”
Every team needs their own shtick, but does that make them a sports team? When posed with the question of whether this Balthazar and his brigade are players of a ‘real sport,’ Altman-Shafer responded confidently, “ Well, given that we’re an all-gender full contact sport, given that [last year] we went to nationals in California, given that we’re a D1 team, given that [on Oct. 17] me and many other quad ball players went to Gillette Stadium to play quadball on the field, I would say that’s a pretty real sport.”
**Yes, I asked, quadball also does have a Division II conference. And yes, some members of the team really go to Gillette as part of a quadball halftime showcase at a New England Revolutions soccer match.
But now the moment everyone, including Altman-Shafer, has been waiting for: what was the reaction among Brandeis Quadball members to Friedman’s disparaging comments, specifically to his assertion that “any player on the frisbee team” would be the best player on quadball? “It was really more of a chortle. Everyone just kind of laughed. Everyone kind of snickered when they read it.” Altman-Shafer summed up the team’s sentiment, “ The biggest joke is anyone from Tron thinking they can beat quadball members at anything.”
And what of Friedman’s assertion that if he were to show up to a Chapels’ Field practice and pick up quadball, he would “be the best player by far”? Altman-Shafer laughed and addressed Friedman directly, “ The craziest part is these practices are open practices. It’s so cool that you can talk so much talk, yet every single time we have these, oh, Chapel’s field disgraceful practice, this eyesore, you never show up. So, you’re saying all that, but you haven’t come to a single practice, and I think it’s because you’re scared, because truthfully, the moment you step on, you’ll be absolutely demolished.” He continued with a smirk, “Nathaniel, I’m speaking to you directly. You have an open invitation. Come to practice. We’ll give you a broom, we’ll give you a headband, we’ll give you everything you need to. We’ll even give you five teammates to play on the field, but your stank just alone from being on that side will just make them lose no matter what.”
There you have it, Brandeis Quadball has officially challenged Friedman to show up and back up his comments at one of their Chapels’ Field practices—the very aspect of the club he had previously eviscerated. Will Friedman do it? Will the prodigy Brandeis Tron bestowed with the name Atlas carry the weight of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter on his shoulders and prove his superiority against the quadballers? And will this clash of the clubs occur before the watchful, deliriously delightful navy and yellow eyes of Balthazar the pink panther? All of these questions remain unanswered. But for now what I can say is that both of these oft-maligned sports do require real athleticism and talent and perhaps deserve to be viewed in a better light. Ultimate frisbee and quadball are, from this old sports editor’s perspective, real sports.
