Good lord, this is difficult. on Quidditch Pitch

Captain Thomas Fitzgerald

April 19, 2010 12:35 PM

Aladren Quidditch Try-Outs/Practice by Captain Thomas Fitzgerald

They were having….difficulties. That was a good word for it. Everyone had difficulties from time to time, but they didn’t necessarily spell the end of an effort. Difficulties could be dealt with, with coercion of potential candidates for the under-manned Quidditch team if necessary. Thomas couldn’t say he was a fan of that sort of thing or had any real experience of it, but he was the grandson of a career politician and the son of a lawyer. The Wizarding World put a lot of stock in blood, so between that and his reading, he figured he’d do all right if it came to that.

For now, though, he was hoping for honest volunteers. They would be more enthusiastic, and Aladren tended to need all the enthusiasm they could get. Thomas thought they actually had good players most of the time – well, Gray was an exception, but that was why they had good Chasers – but he kept running into the wall of psychology. People just naturally assumed that Pecari was going to dominate in any athletic field, despite the fact that their players struck him as a lot of undisciplined lower-levels, because Pecaris were enthusiastic and usually not thought of as intellectual. How that was technically relevant eluded Thomas, since strategy did require a level of intelligence, but it was how people thought. People were illogical like that. Keeping any internal bad feeling off the team would help enormously at game time.

So, hoping for walk-ons, he held tryouts as originally scheduled. It would be too much trouble to find another time, since three other teams, two of which were likely to be especially eager to practice since one of their captains had publically dumped spaghetti on the other, were going to be just as eager to use the Pitch. Scheduling practice time around everyone’s classes and study time and the practices of the other teams was another difficulty Thomas suspected he was going to have to deal with a lot, though it was small potatoes compared to finding some Beaters.

He waited a minute or two after the established start time before beginning to talk. “Afternoon, everyone,” he said. “Good to see you all today. I’m Thomas Fitzgerald, I’m the captain here, and this is Jera Valson, our Assistant Captain.” He had a feeling Jera would be slightly more recognizable to any new recruits that he was just by virtue of being a girl on a team with a shortage of those, but so it went. It was a decent argument for keeping her on as Assistant despite her sudden elevation to his year.

“Most of you know what you’re about, but anyone who didn’t sign up on the sheet needs to speak to me. We’re in particular need of Beaters.” He looked at Edmond thoughtfully for a moment, then mentally shrugged and moved on. "Since everyone who signed up's job involves catching - " he made a mental note to carefully examine anything he touched in Aladren before initiating contact with it for the next few days, just in case Gray decided to make a stab at gruesome and amusing revenge for this - "We're going to start by practicing that for a while. Let's get everyone in the air and spread out at uneven intervals."

Once they'd done that, Thomas tossed the Quaffle up and caught it. He had missed this over the summer. "Remember, you can have this thing thrown at you at any time by anyone, and it hurts when you get hit in the face. Everyone ready? Good." And, after feinting right, he threw the Quaffle to his left.

Subthreads:

Walking-on by Samantha Hamilton

Good lord, this is difficult. by Caleb Nichols

0 Captain Thomas Fitzgerald Aladren Quidditch Try-Outs/Practice 0 Captain Thomas Fitzgerald 1 5

Samantha Hamilton

April 20, 2010 4:25 PM

Walking-on by Samantha Hamilton

There were at least two reasons for Samantha not having signed up for Quidditch in the commonroom. For one, she didn't really know what Quidditch was. For another, she hadn't exactly been steady on her broom in her flying lesson earlier that week. The main reason was probably neither of those, but had a lot to do with no other first years signing up. Samantha didn't like to embarrass herself, and she had decided to just let the whole thing go and maybe sign up next year if she was still interested.

But then curiosity got the better of her, and she found herself arriving at the try-outs. She wore the same outfit she had worn to her flying lesson: a white collared t-shirt with her name embroidered on the front in green, and green sweatpants: the exact same shade of green as her uniform robes. Her light brown hair was tied back into a ponytail, and she was very conscious of how much taller than her all the other players seemed to be. The fact that most of them were boys didn't phase her at all; Samantha had grown up with two brothers who had almost always involved her in their sports games.

Trying to commit the names and faces of the captain and assistnt to memory, Samantha waited until the other students started climbing on their brooms, then she talked to the captain. "My name is Samantha Hamilton," she said, "and I don't know much about Quidditch but I want to try out for the team. I've borrowed a school broom," - she twitched the broomstick in her hand as if to support her statement - "because I don't own one myself."

When she was done talking to the captain, Samantha did as they'd been told and got herself into the air. She was rather more wobbly on her broom than she'd have liked. It was lucky she'd never had a problem with heights. She also had to hope that once she took her hands of the broom handle to catch the ball, she would manage to stay on the broom.

0 Samantha Hamilton Walking-on 159 Samantha Hamilton 0 5

Caleb Nichols

April 30, 2010 10:30 AM

Good lord, this is difficult. by Caleb Nichols

Caleb woke on the morning of the Quidditch try-outs a little shaken. He was ready for try-outs and had been practicing his flying after classes every day. He had gotten pretty good at flying around and only using one hand to control the broom, but it was still nerve-racking to know that he was competing with other people for the position on the Quidditch team.

When he woke, he put on jeans and an orange shirt and then threw his robes over top, put on his glasses, and then put on his pair of soccer shoes that he had brought with him to school. He had a very healthy breakfast: wheat toast with grape jelly, sausages, fruit, and milk. He knew that he needed to eat a good breakfast if he was going to do well on his try-out. When he finished his breakfast he wiped his napkin across his mouth and got up from the table. He walked to the Quidditch Pitch and got a broom out of the closet.

He waited for the Captain to begin speaking and he listened intently as he explained who everyone else who was in charge was. He looked around as the captain, Thomas Fitzgerald, explained that they would be practicing catching the Quaffle, which was the name of the red ball that he was holding in his hand. (Caleb had definitely been going to the library to research Quidditch so he didn't look like a complete loser on the day of try-outs). Once the captain finished speaking Caleb got up into the air and waited for them to begin. Caleb was completely caught off guard when the ball started to fly in his direction, but he quickly stuck out his hand and caught the ball. He smiled to himself, he had done it! Then he looked down at the ball and realized that he was supposed to fly and then throw it to someone else.

He leaned down some and tucked the Quaffle into his right elbow and held it closely as he flew forward and dodged another person. When he felt that he had flown with the Quaffle for a significant amount of time he looked to his left and tossed the ball over his shoulder. He smiled to himself. He was really having a lot of fun, and he was surprised at how well he was doing at his first attempt of ever playing Quidditch.

0 Caleb Nichols Good lord, this is difficult. 0 Caleb Nichols 0 5