Most people don’t know this, but last year it was Peter Salovey who found the golden snitch in the annual clandestine Yale administration Quidditch match. Here’s how it happened:
On a crisp, cold January afternoon, Yale’s professors and administrators suited up, cleats, eye black, and all, for what was supposed to be a friendly competition. Team Salovey donned their purple and gold robes (his favorite colors; insignificant), while Team Levin wore their finest birthday suits (his preferred atire; very significant). The stakes? Vincent Scully Jr. Professor of the History of Art and Dean of Yale College Mary Miller’s heart. Miller, according to the reports of several eyewitnesses, wore a Vera Wang Hermione Granger costume for the occasion. Form met function.
The first half was messy. After Dean Gentry sent a few bludgers his way, President Levin had to sub out with three broken ribs and a dislocated jaw—he would return after halftime. Ronnell “Weasley” Higgins sent Salovey a retaliatory strike, breaking Peter’s two feet and forever ripping off his mustache. Salovey, too, would return, and he would do so with a vengeance.
After Dean B. of Trumbull scored three consecutive quaffels in the final minutes of the third quarter, it appeared as if Team Levin would take home the Quidditch cup, along with Vincent Scully Jr. Professor of the History of Art and Dean of Yale College Mary Miller and her heart.
Team Levin upheld its reputation for trash talking. The halftime show was anything but family-friendly, as Richard and Ronnell hurled profanities, typically reserved for mudbloods, at Peter and his wizard squad.
Though visibly shaken, Salovey, the Provost with the Mo-vost, refused to surrender. With just two minutes left, Peter saw a shimmer in the corner of his eye: the golden snitch. Soaring through the air with the greatest of ease, Salovey grabbed the snitch and held it tight. With that, the game was over and Team Salovey had won. As he walked off the field, holding Miller, 60, in one hand and a terribly gaudy trophy in the other, Peter was approached by then-and-now-President, Rich Levin. In an uncharacteristic display of sportsmanship, Levin congratulated Peter and his team. Amazed by the provost’s performance and upset with his own, Levin would decide that he had no choice but to retire from Quidditch, from Country, and from Yale, forever, leaving the Provost with the absolute Mo-vost in charge.
Come out this weekend to see Team Salovey play Quinnipiac!
