Feature
The Mid-Atlantic's North-South Split
Before the 2012-13 season, the northernmost states of the South Region and southernmost states of the Northeast Region were pulled into a more central Mid-Atlantic Region, offering localized competition for many teams. Two years later, the differences between those regions can still be seen in the Mid-Atlantic.
Before the 2012-13 season, the northernmost states of the South Region and southernmost states of the Northeast Region were pulled into a more central Mid-Atlantic Region, offering localized competition for teams in the states of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia, and North Carolina. Two years later, the differences between those regions can still be seen in the Mid-Atlantic.
As most of the teams coming onto the scene in the last season are from the southern half of the Mid-Atlantic—from UNC-Chapel Hill’s rush into the spotlight early last season to Capital Madness’ recent emergence this summer—it would seem that Washington D.C. and the southern states are running events with the northern half of the region by now. However, looking at a region that is still dominated at the top by Maryland’s University of Maryland (UMD) and Pennsylvania’s Villanova Community Quidditch and Pennsylvania State University, there remains a clear disparity that favors the north. To figure out why, I considered a couple reasons when looking at this split: tradition and recruiting, as well as team density and competition.
Tradition and Recruiting
In many ways, the northern half of the Mid-Atlantic has its own identity—despite their own successes, these teams are united by the still-lingering specter of being the Northeast’s cast-offs. Pulled from the Northeast when that region’s pride was at its highest, teams primarily from Pennsylvania and Maryland (although Maryland was technically in the South Region, its teams always primarily associated with more programs in the Northeast) saw the level of competitive play drop as they faced the less developed teams of North Carolina and Virginia. The northern teams in the Mid-Atlantic face the constant pull of competition from the nearby Northeast, a luxury unavailable to teams from the southern part of the region who are isolated from the Northeast and the South Region’s top teams in Florida.
At the time of the Mid-Atlantic’s creation, teams like Penn State, Villanova, and University of Pittsburgh all had programs with a pretty solid base and a couple years under their wings. In the southern part of the region, the University of Richmond was just carrying over its first stable recruiting class and teams like UNC-Chapel Hill and Appalachian Quidditch were still struggling to field full teams. Many of the players in North Carolina had just joined Quidditch Club of the Carolinas (QCC), a community team that built its foundation on outcasts from teams that could not field official rosters. The Pennsylvania teams that have recently been at the top of the region, have a track record of successful recruiting and a winning attitude, most importantly though they’ve shown a commitment to building a strong team and have the pedigree to prove it.
UMD had great leadership who were quick to make a decision about their team’s future.
“We decided to make UMD a competitive team and recruited athletes,” said Erin Mallory of Maryland Quidditch. “I think that’s what every team needs and yes—it’s hard at first.”
It will be interesting to see, then, what direction the fresh teams of the southern states take; UNC-Chapel Hill has shown dedication to this track while Capital Madness was established with this direction in mind, and early reports from George Mason University suggest that the coaches will have a large class of rookies to work with this year after heavy recruitment over the summer. In order to run with the big dogs up north, these teams will need to create their own tradition with a commitment to recruiting.
Team Density and Competition
Even with newer teams developing in the southern portion of the region, a quick look at the (mostly accurate) teams map shows that Pennsylvania had a clear start there and still dominates the Mid-Atlantic population. While the Mid-Atlantic is dense, with an above average amount of teams in a small geographic region, that density is concentrated in the north where teams can play amongst themselves and also travel to the more popular Northeast region. This isolates the southern half of the region.
“The level of competition suffers because teams play a small pool of similar teams,” said Nathan Love, captain of QCC.
With only Tennessee Tech University and a couple of relatively unestablished teams in South Carolina within competitive range outside the region, the southern Mid-Atlantic teams are trying to build themselves up without a lot of opportunities to work against different teams and strategies.
Up north, teams like Penn State and Maryland face a constant battery of competitive opportunities by looking northward. This provides teams an opportunity to test themselves against the more-established and strategically-varied teams of the Northeast (and sometimes, in the cases of Penn State and Pitt, the borders of the Midwest).
“Rarely do teams from Pennsylvania play teams from North Carolina,” said Love. He is right, North Carolina teams struggle to bring competitive rosters to UMD’s biennial tournaments, the only events in which these states face off outside of the Regional Championship. This problem is one that is harder to correct without teams proving their commitments to tradition and recruiting. The southern states of the Mid-Atlantic need to encourage growth amongst each other in order to be recognized by and given the same opportunities as the teams to their north, which will happen if teams continue to push themselves toward more varied play while bringing in more athletic recruiting classes.
