Picture the Quidditch of the Harry Potter book and movie series — in which one of the objects of the game is to catch a small, winged ball called the snitch — but where instead the snitch is a person dressed in Day-Glo yellow with a tennis ball attached to his waistline with Velcro.

“I wanted a way to feature the unusual sports that get played in Lawrence,” explained Abby Magariel, education and programs coordinator for the Watkins Museum of History, one of the organizers of Larryville Offbeat Sports Day, whose name speaks for itself.

The Saturday event at the East Lawrence Recreation Center, 1245 E. 15th St., featured eight other athletic activities: Red Dog’s Dog Days Workout, Kaw Valley Dodgeball, Pickleball, Kaw Valley Kickball, Kaiut Yoga, Scary Larry Bike Polo, field crumpet and Betty Ultimate. The theme of odd sports was one apt for Lawrence, Magariel said, which shows the open-mindedness of the community and its willingness to embrace things not of the norm.

“I think the fact that Lawrence is a community where unusual sports can thrive says a lot about it,” she said.

The Kansas Quidditch players, making do without magic, played on the grass instead of in the air, but in homage to flying broomsticks clasped a length of plastic piping in one hand as they tried to throw a volleyball (quaffle) through one of three hoops without being pegged by a dodgeball (bludger). It’s like basketball, dodgeball and rugby combined, said Max Wallerstedt, a member of the KU Club Quidditch team.

“It has a lot of techniques and skills you’d need in any sport,” he said.

In addition to Watkins, the Kansas Humanities Council and the City of Lawrence Parks and Recreation also partnered for the event, which was sponsored by Hometown Teams, a Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition. Activities ran from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. and participants had the chance to watch or play each of Lawrence’s inventive sports.

Magariel said about 170 people participated Saturday.

“We’ve got a terrific active community interested in playing sports off the beaten track,” she said.