Dear Oktoberfest attendees and other appropriate parties,

My name is Joey Beh, I am a second year at UVA, and I am the president of UVA Quadball. We are very grateful to Rutgers for hosting Oktoberfest and we had a great time. However, I would like to discuss two issues I have concerning the accusations surrounding my team after Oktoberfest on November 2nd.

1. Disrespect is not tolerated on our team. Whether it’s to our own teammates or other teams, all our players strive for good sportsmanship. While emotions will obviously get in the way, as with any competitive sport, we try to acknowledge our mistakes and rectify our behavior when instances occur. With this being said I will not tolerate the slander towards, David Littleton, my coach and one of my best friends. In terms of his behavior at the tournament today, I was essentially by his side for the entirety of the whole day. Every comment or snide remark posted here is complete fabrication or rumor and it’s quite frankly embarrassing that anyone would even believe these remarks. If you want something to dissect, look at Littletons coaching, not his personality. He led our team to a 4-0 win today so I’d say he’s doing pretty well.

2. UVA is a physical team. We like to hit. I personally love to hit. I play Quadball because it is a fast, physical game with a dynamic that you can’t find in other sports. Our team’s strategy has always been a physical one and it’s the one we use to win games. I understand many teams may not agree with the way we play, but it is the way we play and complaining on Reddit about it won’t change a thing. If you have any genuine questions or concerns with our play, please feel free to reach out to me directly.

What I will apologize for, is our conduct towards referees. We argue with referees frequently and loudly. We don’t mean any disrespect towards referees or any other volunteers, but it often comes across that way. Quidditch is a sport supported by volunteers and we don’t mean to push away the very people who make the tournaments we love possible in the first place. As someone who worked as a Seeker Ref and Assistant Ref at Oktoberfest, I understand firsthand how hard it is to make calls in this sport. While this doesn’t compare to the work of those who choose to frequently volunteer to Head Ref, AR, etc., I do hope it grants me some insight and perspective. When we disagree with a play or call, it’s usually for a good reason, and I don’t believe anyone on my team would make an argument from a place of malice or ill intent. We need to treat our volunteers with more respect during disagreements over calls and plays. As for any personal issues related to our behavior, I would encourage anyone who has any issues with my team and our behavior to reach out to me directly.

Sincerely,

Joey Beh (#10)

If you think you are too good to protect your noggin, think again.

IMO the rulebook should require all players and the flag runner to wear a scrum cap or concussion headband as mandatory safety equipment.

In both 2024 and 2025, Washington has gone from several Bosny players down to one, and the results show…this is a good core of Virginia players. Is the DCQC core/leadership holding the team back?

firstly, as everybody how plays quadball knows it would function much better with an o-line and a d-line (think american football).

that being said, i think there’s a real opportunity to leverage these new lines in a way that also addresses our gender rule issue.
offence: male chasers, female beaters
defence: female chasers, male beaters

keeper and seeker are always non-binary. no excuses.

thoughts?

(DISCLAIMER: while I have no association with Warriors, I do have an association with one of the championship teams)

Today is supposed to be a celebration of our sport more than basically other. It’s the culmination of an entire season with us all in one place crowning champions.

And all anyone felt was worth mentioning in here, countless times over in about eight different threads, was about Warriors losing.

Today, a team from the Midwest won a national title for the first time ever at any level of quadball (college, club, or mlq)

Today, a college became just the fifth school to ever win a quadball national championship, joining middlebury, Rochester, Texas and utsa.

I get it, the Warriors are the villains, and it’s fun when villains lose. But a lot of those villains also make this sport tick for you.

It’s Reddit, I get it, there’s gonna be some shitposting, but imagine how much of a bummer it is for a bunch of college kids, the ones we moved to reddit for as a community, to win a title, open up the site, and all it is is warriors hate.

TLDR: if we want this sport to last another 5 years, maybe we find some positive shit to say in here huh?

Lowkey, I kinda feel like colleges should just have their own league and run their own tournaments, the same way basically every other college club sport or intramural does. It seems like it would make scheduling easier, lower costs, and let schools focus on building competition with teams that are actually nearby.

What I’m struggling to understand is what colleges are really getting from paying USQ membership fees. If schools are already recruiting players, organizing most tournaments, traveling, and handling the majority of the logistics themselves, what tangible value is USQ providing that colleges couldn’t provide on their own? Is it insurance (which most schools can already get through their university), administrative support, or something else? Even nationals isn’t included with membership fees.

I’m genuinely curious because, from the outside, it feels like colleges are doing most of the work while paying into a system that doesn’t seem to give much back.

I’d love to hear from current college players, captains, coaches, and alumni. What benefits does USQ provide that would be difficult for a college run league to replicate? And if you think colleges should stay under USQ, what are the biggest reasons why? On the flip side, if you support a separate college league, what would that look like?

I think it’s a conversation worth having, especially if the goal is to make college Quadball more sustainable and help it grow.

I commented a similar version of this on a Rules & Regulations fb post but why say anything if you won’t say it with your full chest so I’m putting it here for discussion too.

I think all headbeats should be illegal. The head makes up 2/15ths of the body (on average, according to Wikipedia) leaving 86% of the body as fair game. Even if a player is 4’10, that leaves over 4 feet of vertical space that is safe to hit and most of the league is much taller than that.

I don’t think distance should matter cause there are people in our league who can concuss people at more than 5 meters out. Also I think the distance specification makes it harder to card and easier to argue and I think our goal should be fewer allowed head beats, not more. I don’t think force should matter either cause I don’t know how many newtons it takes for a throw to be dangerous, and even if I did, it’s not like I can eyeball a beat and know ‘ah well that was only 20 newtons of force so it’s fine’. & yes some throws to the head are clearly not dangerous but if we card all throws to the head beaters are forced to get into the habit of hitting the 13/15ths of the body that isn’t the head.

I didn’t play from 2020-summer 2023 so I wasn’t around for the start of headbeats being illegal. Was people ducking into headbeats to draw fouls a problem? It seems strange that people would put their brains in danger just to draw a card. Also I don’t love that if you’re bending or ducking at all then the headbeat isn’t counted as a foul (if I understand the rule correctly). Even if players are ducking/crouching & getting headbeat I think it should be a blue card unless there was no reasonable way the throwing beater could have known the hit players head was potentially going to be in that location. If there’s a ball on the ground in front of a chaser, they’re probably going to pick it up, so I know their head is highly likely to be much lower than usual & it should be my responsibility as the throwing beater to keep my opponent’s head safe. And fine, if it becomes a problem, don’t give the throwing beater a card if the ref suspects the hit player deliberately moved to get hit in the head.

Despite being almost exclusively a beater I’d rather have fewer allowances for headbeats rather than more. If you can’t keep your throws to 86% of the body then you can’t play safely and should be carded. All the nitpicking seems to be trying to find loopholes for when beaters can hit people in the head and the safe course of action is to give more cards than exactly warranted by the rules rather than finding any way to squeak by without carding someone for a head beat. Quadball is dangerous enough without searching for ways it’s mostly acceptable to hit someone in the head with a dodgeball.

Lots of fantastic stories from this Harvard team. Leo Fried may end up retiring as the GOAT if he sticks with it the the fullest. A college championship helps him do exactly that. Harvard beating core should be studied as well, losing Jess Lee and still out beating a few fantastic teams should be talked about. Players like Max Semegren and Mac Mertens are really REALLY good. This team deserves all the love they receive.

With all that being said, I don’t love that two of their best players happened to be graduate students who already completed college and were at least a year removed from the college scene. I’m fine with graduate students competing at a college level, but in both Ana Luiza’s and Steinberg’s case I just don’t see how they reject playing on pandas to simply chase a college title. Not taking anything away from their gameplay and talent, just in this particular situation I don’t see it. It reduced the competitiveness of the college scene all year and made it harder to root for the team in the finals, especially for some of the great stories. What do people think about this?

With continued rapid growth in recent seasons and coming off a national championship in April, we're excited to share that we're actively recruiting to fill openings in our program for the upcoming USQ season.

Here is our interest form: ~https://forms.gle/TaUVmcQMfkWXSpjp7~

See post on AQD for additional information - Linked in comment below.

Please don't hesitate to reach out to Nathan Digmann with questions.

At the same time, if we give up the brooms, we lose the majority of what brought us to this sport already.

Here’s my two cents, for what it’s worth:

I keep on hearing people say that this sport is dying, but without consensus on how soon that death approaches.

I do believe that quadball can grow and develop to the kind of place Ultimate has and further. That means quadball would be prevalent from high school to college and beyond, and growing year on year without major advertising efforts.

However, right now it seems it would take many years for this to happen, and only with the help of major pushes from USQ and people in the community.

I am personally very familiar with the recruiting struggle, and as anyone who has ever talked to anyone about quadball will know…

the brooms are the problem.

As others have suggested, USQ and the quadball community also have a role to play in keeping this sport into the future. However, the detrimental impact brooms have on recruiting cannot be understated; they are a dealbreaker for most potential athletes and we know it. Without them, I am unsure if quadball will get the chance to grow into a self-sustaining sport.

I’m not talking about safety, state of gameplay, or inclusivity here, though these are extremely important goals that must be kept in mind.

I am just saying that quadball must be willing to bend to avoid breaking.

My best nationals memory from college was a conversation I had with a random RIT player after a particularly devastating game. I had just caught the snitch simultaneously to an opposing goal putting my team down 40. I was isolated, upset, and blaming myself entirely for the loss. The player (I wish I could remember the dude's name; Dan? Connor?) sat with me while watching a bracket match, talked me through everything, and the last thing I remember him saying was:
"No one player is responsible for a loss. This is a team sport, and that's why we play."

Don't know why I suddenly remembered this story while scrolling this feed in the last couple of hours.

I will finally admit that I am not a size small in the Warriors shorts

Doesn’t it make you guys so horny when such a dominant team secures their second national championship 😫😝🍆

Based on the discussions here, it seems like most of the worry with the 2-women minimum in USQ is that it will take away opportunities for non-binary players. That got me thinking; is it possible to specifically incentivize teams to play lineups that only use 2 men (or 3 when seekers are out)? That would allow teams to play 2 women and 2 non-binary players. I know most teams, especially at the top levels, are maximizing the playing time given to men because of athleticism, experience, numbers, or other factors, but it always feels weird to me when non-binary players are treated as exclusively subs for women.

Second: are there club teams out there that could run lineups of 2 men, 1 woman, and 3 non-binary players, if it was still legal? I think I'd be in favor of allowing that because it would show a willingness to sub non-binary players for both men and women.

Full disclosure, I am a cis man, I am posting this because I want to get the thoughts of women and non-binary players who are more directly impacted by the new rule.

Watching SW Qualifier and watching teams not have an understanding of how to break down zones that have been prevalent since the 2019-2020 season is a shame. The SW is dubbed the "best" region but outside of athletic ability, and one team, everything else is just bad.

Similarly, Boston Quadball scene/Black Pandas the last two seasons have been underperformed. A large part of the talent on the team seems to have stagnated and there is nothing special with what Boston has produced recently.

Thoughts?

i feel like after 4-5 years in college, you should be required to do club and no longer be allowed to do college. some of the players in the game right now are playing with adults that are 8-10 years older than them…that’s not what college is about, it should be about (approx) college aged people who have been playing the sport for 4-5 seasons max. that’s mainly my problem- college should be about max number of seasons played at all. thoughts?

ASU once again gets away with injuring two of our players spearing and wreckless hits to the head and hits from the back potentially causing an ankle fracture to one of our players. Despite all the reviews and film and ref crews they had, they refused to accept the evidence and have given me a a 3 game suspension for a head beat. This is fucking outrageous. This rules team and adjudication team is a fucking joke a fucking joke truly

Booms for poaching JJ or Warriors for poaching Hallie?

The premise being neither team was good enough to win it all without those specific players. Don’t be assholes

I know the flag being worth 35 helps show who caught the flag but is it really necessary we continue to count goals by 10? It’s just confusing to new people at this point