I arrived at Gosman a little before 10 p.m. in search of a shuttlecock. I knew that Badminton Club meets on Tuesdays and Thursday at this time, so I figured I could just waltz into the gym and be surrounded by badminton players. I was told they play on the main basketball court, but as I stood at the top of the stairs, all I could see were cheerleaders, frisbee tossers and basketballers. Not a birdee in sight. Starting to panic, I took a little adventure. P.S. Gosman is big. When I made my way back to my starting place, I heard someone call my name, and at the bottom of the stairs was the club's chief operating officer Natan Davoudzadeh '08, who motioned me to come down to the court. Club president, Dave Guerette '08, and chief financial officer, Mike Greenberg '08, followed shortly, racquets in hand. They told me that people tended to trickle in, and started to take out the nets and other equipment. While they did that, Greenberg gave me a short history of the game of badminton.

I learned from Greenberg that badminton began in the 1700s in England.

"It came from a game called Battledores and Shuttlecocks. I don't know what that is," he said. He did, however, redeem his lack of knowledge with this fun fact: "The dimensions of the Badminton court are the dimensions of the room where they played it in the king's castle."

So with a little history under my belt and a racket in my hand, I was confident that I had what it took to become the next star player of the Badminton club.

Cut to Guerette yelling words of encouragement, like "Seventh time's the charm!" as I repeatedly swung and missed.

My amount of skill just goes to show that this club is open to players with all levels of experience. Sure, I got a varsity letter in tennis senior year of high school, but that was by default; anyone could play varsity at my school. In any event, I was thrilled to be able to sport the pair of Champion gym shorts that had been slowly disintegrating under my bed.

About 16 people showed up on this particular night, and club leaders said attendance can reach 20-some students. Next year, the club plans to join the Northeast Intercollegiate Badminton League, and according to Guerette, players will be "sending their street style to the courts."

Due to my extensive tennis experience, the other players had to keep telling me to resist hitting backhand, which inevitably ended up in a miss. The strokes were completely foreign to me. I learned a few basic tactics during my time at badminton club: I learned to hit the birdie when it's still high in the air with my arm outstretched, and, most importantly, not to underestimate the power of the shuttlecock.

I became addicted to the rush of adrenaline that accompanies hitting the birdie solidly, or to the satisfying "ping" of the shuttlecock against the racket, or even the ability to alternate between saying shuttlecock and birdie. It's such a versatile sport.

"Sometimes people get hit in the face with the shuttlecock at 200 mph and their nose breaks," Chris Malchow '08 said while we discussed the different aspects of badminton.

"But that doesn't happen here," Greenberg quickly added.

Despite these potential dangers, Davoudzadeh feels very passionately about the game.

"I played in high school and gym, and I found it to be quite an amazing sport," he said. "It requires skill, power. It requires practice. It completes me."

Plus badminton may be the only game where you can smack a birdie without protests from PETA. Maybe it should be called "goodminton.