Found
“Need someone to fly to Germany today. You in? Flight from Philly direct to Frankfurt at 7 PM.”
I was in the middle of a Reach to Teach interview when this message popped up on my phone. Usually, I have my phone away from my computer when I’m interviewing teachers, but it slipped my mind this time. I had just asked the interviewee a question and had to get her to repeat her answer. After the interview wrapped up, I called my new boss/old friend to ask if this was real.
This felt familiar somehow…
Who knew that nine years later, I’d be working for the older brother of this mysterious Dan?
Todd started SAVAGE Ultimate out of his home in 2009. I still remember when he showed up to Chucktown Throwdown with our team’s infamous jerseys. Yeah, even the Broke Phi Broke Grundlebugs could afford these kits--Todd made sure to make these jerseys affordable for college kids. He told us a little about the company and said to talk to him about a job after I graduated. Well, I’ve graduated and Todd was serious. I was hard to find for a bit there--some people still think I lived in Thailand. But, with a new office in Richmond, Todd and SAVAGE were easy to find when I got back. One week into the job, I was getting sent to Frankfurt, Germany for the Quidditch World Cup.
But, is this real?
I weaved through six hours of traffic up to Philadelphia (much like we did in ‘07), bounded to my gate with four bags of jerseys in tow, and somehow made it to Frankfurt, where Anna, a rep from the IQA (International Quidditch Association) took me straight to the fields.
Twenty teams (and many fans) from all over the world made the trek to compete at the sport’s highest level (in the muggle world). Australia and South Korea were the farthest-traveling teams. USA was a heavy favorite, and the talk of the tournament was whether anyone could even score on them this year. (Bulgaria wasn’t there and I suppose Krum retired.) So you can imagine how much people lost their shit when Australia beat them in the final with a snitch catch. It truly was a thriller.
Savannah, my SAVAGE partner in crime at the tournament, snapped this right after the refs called the snitch catch “GOOD!”
The whole tournament had a similar vibe to a frisbee tournament: games all day, friendly people everywhere, tight-knit community...
closing ceremonies
So...this is real.
It all happened so fast. I watched my first Quidditch game. I traveled to Europe for the first time. I used a company card for SAVAGE, which 7 years ago was Todd and his oven, screen printing jerseys.
“Don’t be too hard to find.”
