Like freshman everywhere, Xander Manshel and his Middlebury College classmates found themselves in their first year of college pondering some of life's biggest mysteries—like how to play Quidditch if you can't, like Harry Potter, fly?

The solution: race around in capes and goggles with broomsticks between your legs, while shooting balls through mounted hula hoops. Their version of the game, first played in 2005, was modeled on matches described in J.K. Rowling's novels.

"Quidditch...