IQA Official Membership Awards

by Katie Stack | October 30, 2012

After weeks of accepting and evaluating nominations, and finally a week of voting by our Official Member teams, the winners of the 2012 IQA Membership Awards were chosen and announced at QuidCon in Chicago on July 15. Even if it's months after the fact, these teams deserve the recognition that their peers gave them. Please see below for complete descriptions of the awards! Team Award Winners: IQA Sportsmanship Award: Vassar College The Xander Manshel Award: Boston University The First Year Survival Award: Briarcliff Nearly Headless Nicholas Cages The Neville Longbottom Award: Purdue University The #swag Award: Emerson College Community Service Award: Tufts University Event Award Winners: The “Better than the World Cup” Award: University of Maryland's Shell-Shocking Spectacular The “Turned out better than the Weasley/Delacour Wedding” Award: Purdue University's Yule Ball The “Money is Might” Award: Marquette University's t-shirt sale   --   IQA Sportsmanship Award: Vassar College Nominated by the University of Maryland The IQA Sportsmanship Award goes to the team that has demonstrated an overall commitment to sportsmanship through fair play, generosity, and integrity. They accept both victory and defeat graciously and hold a great respect for competitors, teammates, officials, and fans alike. “When we think of good sportsmanship, we think of Vassar. They are the best of any teams we've seen that balance competition and fair play with the fun and magical spirit of quidditch. When we were working on creating a balance in our own team, we were inspired by them. We looked to Vassar for advice and as role models. When we contacted them to see how they organized their team, they were happy to help and give tips. During tournaments they are always a friendly group to see, are extremely respectful and good sports, as well as maintaining a focus on the true spirit of quidditch and demonstrating that through their sportsmanship and behavior on and off the pitch.”

1. At World Cup IV, despite having been knocked out of the championship match, they still played hard while having fun (even skipping down the field arm in arm), focused on playing quidditch as it is meant to be.
2. At tournaments always greeting other teams and happy to meet others.
3. Follow rules of the games during play and very pleasant to referees and officials (exemplary behavior and well composed during the Stony Brook Classic, for example).

-- The Xander Manshel Award: Boston University The recipient of the Xander Manshel Award truly embodies the spirit of the IQA. By furthering the IQA's mission of creativity, community, and competition, this team has enabled the culture of quidditch to spread to a greater demographic while continuing to focus on their own competitive spirit. “BUQ embodies the spirit of this award to the fullest. The team's involvement in school events, from hosting a BU Alumni Weekend tournament to participating in the community service events of other groups, and even hosting kidditch events for Boston children, has helped strengthen and create ties within the BU and Boston community. The team also co-hosted the recent Spring Champions Series with Emerson and the Boston Cannons, thus demonstrating BUQ's dedication to creating stronger connections between quidditch teams, and to furthering the quidditch presence in Boston. Behind the competitiveness and tournaments, however, is a true love of the game. Even while vacationing in Paris this past spring, BU players were excited to engage in a fun scrimmage against the Paris team.”

1. Creativity: BUQ organized many events and games throughout the semester, all Harry Potter-themed, including two HP Assassins games and a Horcrux Hunt.
2. Community: BUQ involved itself in events hosted by other BU groups, such as the philanthropy event of a BU frat, called Rhett's Challenge, thus raising money for charity and strengthening its ties within the BU community.
3. Competition: BUQ campaigned rigorously throughout the year for approval as a club sport, which it achieved in May, allowing the team to grow in a more competitive direction.

The First Year Survival Award: Briarcliff Nearly Headless Nicholas Cages This award goes to a first year team that has demonstrated impressive leadership and substantial growth. They have already substantially contributed to the thriving IQA community by participating in and hosting events, and have also interacted with their community through social outreach. “In one year, Briarcliff Quidditch has made a name for themselves. After only three months of existing, they co-hosted their first tournament as a team of about nine middle schoolers. The team has failed to recruit upper class-men, but in their freshman year of high school, the team planned two tournaments. Unfortunately, one never happened because of a freak snow storm in October. Their first tournament had four teams and one pitch. After exactly one year, that tournament grew to a ten team tournament with three pitches. They also never shy away from a game, even if it's against college and older teams.”

1. We've hosted three tournaments in one year.
2. We've played at the World Cup, ranking fourth in the high school division
3. We're very social with the quidditch community. Our tent was next to the Virginia Commonwealth tent in the players' village at world cup and a bond formed between us. Seven months later, they traveled 7+ hours to help us at our tournament.

-- The Neville Longbottom Award: Purdue University This award goes to the team that faced and fought through the toughest hurdles throughout the year, be they weather, injury, big brother's intervention, or other unfortunate circumstances, all while maintaining a positive attitude. “Weather, school complications, missing flights: you name it; in the past year, Purdue Quidditch had to deal with it. We went into the 2011 World Cup without having won a single IQA match. We had trouble securing Travel Planning Forms from the school because at the 2010 World Cup our cars hit a deer on the highway. Then, we didn't have any money to pay for flights for all of our travelling team members. When it finally came to our final World Cup game, all but two of our players had some sort of injury, but we played on. Our biggest challenge by far was our flight home. We were sure we would be knocked out by Sunday, so we intended to skip the final game to catch our flight. It blind-sided us that we made it to the finals. Several students had homework due, tests and quizzes Monday morning and couldn't miss the flight, and the next flight was not until Monday morning, and it was booked. Despite our setbacks, we were more positive than ever for the World Cup, and nothing could set us back. Winning Division II was just the cherry on top of an awesome weekend.”

1. Going into the World Cup we had two players injured.
2. Half of our team missed our flight back home after the World Cup. And we still had a blast.
3. All of our traveling team members had to pay for their own flights due to our school's business system. We could not refund them until after the trip.

-- The #swag Award: Emerson College This award goes to the team that has achieved the most powerful visual and physical presence, otherwise known as #swag. With a combination of uniforms, banners, war cheers, facepaint, the recipient of this award has created a unique style and flare that distinguishes the team from all others. “This team is most deserving of the swag award for two key reasons. First, they are the team in the IQA with the most consistent swag. At every tournament, this team goes all out with face paint, supporters, jerseys, equipment, and most importantly, player behavior. They act like they have swagger, and everyone on the pitch and off it knows that they do. Their House League quidditch program has four teams (five as of next year) with 25-30 players each, making it one of the largest in the world. This allows the team to hand pick the players with the most swag for the World Cup, and the remaining 100+ players support the team and add to their swag. Second, they were the first quidditch team to bring swag to the sport. The original swag-creators, and still the best, cannot, and must not, be overlooked.”

1. Champion Series- The massive amount of fans, team members, school supporters, and everyone involved with ECQ overwhelmed the other teams and filled the team with swagger both on and off the field. They even beat one team solely with swag.
2. World Cup V- Facepaint, player specific headbands, their jerseys, and high energy gave ECQ more swagger than any other team at World Cup. If you followed them around, you could hope to pick up some swagger off the ground after it dripped from them . #swag.
3. World Cup III- The original #swag! The Mohawks of Emerson are famous, and team haircuts and bonding exercises demonstrating quidditch swag became popular, all because of Emerson. They were the first team ever, and I mean EVER, to have #swag in quidditch.

-- Community Service Award: Tufts University Tufflepuffs This award recognizes the impressive efforts of an IQA member team in the realm of community service. The team demonstrates an eagerness to give back to their community and a willingness to use the magical realm of quidditch to affect change in our real world. “Tufts Quidditch successfully initiated, developed, and successfully implemented the first (and only, as far as we know) weekly kidditch program. We formed relationships with the local students at the Boys and Girls Club of Medford. As the weeks flashed by we built a rapport with the students, learning where their playing strengths lay and where our teaching skills flourished. We made sure we had the appropriate equipment by building another, safer set of hoops and purchasing smaller, kidfriendly brooms to leave at the Club. Additionally, we choose most “kidexperienced” and enthusiastic Tufflepuffs to work with the local kids selected through an application process, and we trained our volunteers and brainstormed rule modifications to make the game safe and fun. We empowered local students through continued success and encouragement playing quidditch with older mentors, not just the initial novelty, and the Boys and Girls Club was clearly thankful for it. At the end of the year, we received hand-written thank you notes (in crayon and marker) from the kids telling us how much fun they had, and a separate note (written in pen!) from the Club's director saying she can't wait until next year. We can't either.”

1. As part of Tufts' annual “Community Day,” the Tufflepuffs invited local families to play kidditch.
2. Given the overwhelming success and support from both kids and parents on Community Day, we contacted the local Boys and Girls Club of Medford to develop a weekly kidditch program.
3. Ultimately, after a full, successful year of quidditch and kidditch, we volunteered to hold another one-time lesson for children Kindergarten through 2nd grade at Tufts' annual “Kid's Day,” again engaging local residents to play quidditch on our campus.

  Event Award Winning Nominations: The “Better than the World Cup” Award: University of Maryland's Shell-Shocking Spectacular This award commemorates the most successful quidditch tournament run by a team or group of teams (not the IQA administration), based on funds, gameplay, and community integration. “Many aspects of this tournament worked to promote quidditch and the ideals of the IQA. The tournament focused on the elements of a well-run tournament and focused to make sure all teams had all their needs met: water and bathrooms were readily available, a large volunteer staff was on hand to address any issues that may arise, an on-call staff of 3 EMTs as well as an ambulance stationed at the event location, and all details arranged ahead of time so any potential problems were fixed before they occurred. The tournament focused on clear planning (with a scoreboard and running standings available throughout the day), welcoming new teams, bonding between teams and players (including playing music to encourage inter-team dancing and a lighthearted atmosphere at the event), a high level of sportsmanship and an opportunity for high rate athleticism and competition, highly trained and competent referee staff, and more. The tournament was very deliberately organized to address team concerns and to promote the ideals of community within the sport.” -- The “Turned Out Better than the Weasley/Delacour Wedding” Award: Purdue University's Yule Ball This award commemorates the most successful quidditch community social event of the year run by a team or group of teams (not the IQA administration) based on funds, community integration, and FUN! “For as long as I have been with the Purdue Quidditch team we have had a limited number of amazing fundraising activities, so when we decided to have a campus wide Yule Ball, it was not surprising that we had few look upon it with skeptical eyes. At first it was more of a “I hope we have more people that are not from the team than are from the team” attitude, but as ticket sales came in we kept getting more and more excited it was more than any of us expected and kept our hopes up. As the Yule Ball approached we started getting nervous and mixed with excitement, and it felt as though we would never be done with the decorations. The afternoon of the ball we were informed that the speakers we had didn't work. Our president was scrabbling around trying to find anyone with speakers that would work. By the time of the ball one of our club members saved us and brought and helped set up the speakers. All of our hard work and stress paid off and we had a very successful night. Pre-ticket sales plus door ticket sales totaled around $3000 with about 250 in attendance. Many of the people in attendance shared with us that they are very excited and looking forward to it next year, as is the club.” -- The “Money is Might” Award: Marquette University's T-Shirt Sale This award commemorates the most successful fundraiser for a quidditch team based on creativity, awareness, and funds raised. “The event was successful because we took a logo that was carefully crafted and made sure that we could appeal to the masses. We took the old logo of the warrior that was famous at Marquette in the glory days of the championship basketball team in the 70's and morphed the back of it with a version of our new mascot-the golden eagle. The warrior logo that pays tribute to the entire history of the schools mascots makes it good for old and new students. We also sold them with quidditch on the back. While we realize that some would want it on the front, the majority of people were in love with the logo and didn't know the sport yet. So, for our first shirt we put it on the back in case someone wanted a jacket but just loved our logo! Our next shirt is just a MARQUETTE QUIDDITCH shirt like all the other club sports on campus, but we appealed to the masses completely with our marketing and planning with this sale!”