It’s a quiet moment on a Friday night in the FitRec gym. Quiet, because quiet is the unwritten rule during the intensely competitive rally being fought on the badminton court. Wielding willowy rackets, students in T-shirts and shorts or sweatpants send shuttlecocks sailing over nets, the thwacks from slams and whispered pings from drop shots making a chorus with the mouse squeaks of sneakered feet on the hardwood. Shuttlecocks litter the floor as if shot from the sky (aptly, they’re also called “birdies”).

“Everyone needs to be quiet during play,” says Badminton Club president Darian Fard (CAS’17). “Between rallies, they can be going crazy.”

It is this high-speed dissolve of sound and motion that entrances Fard, who took up the game during high school in Toronto. “If someone smashes really hard, the sound is like a cannon,” he says. “It turns heads.” And “when you want to move around, you have to have the proper technique. When you have the proper technique, it’s like you float.” The best players, he says, look “majestic,” “graceful,” and “effortless.”

Fard showed up at the club’s games during freshman year expecting a huge turnout of players as competitive as he. Instead, he says, “I saw everyone was just like very recreational and very relaxed. I wanted to really bring BU to the competitive level. My hope is that in a few years, we’ll build a reputation here for BU and join some big badminton associations and compete at the intercollegiate level.” The club competes in tournaments once or twice a year with schools like Harvard, MIT, and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, but its main action is intramural play Fridays and Sundays.

Li-Ke Ko (CAS’17) prepares to serve during a BU Badminton Club practice.

The game of badminton was created by British soldiers in India in the 19th century and these days is dominated by players from China, Indonesia, Malaysia, and curiously, Denmark. It is said to be the fastest racket sport in the world, with birdies clocked at 206 miles per hour.

Fard estimates that 70 percent of the Friday night regulars are international students.

Club member Chenhao Zhou (CAS’18) has played since middle school in his native China. “I find it’s very competitive, and it’s interesting—how to control a birdie, to let it drop where you want it to drop.”

Badminton appeals to Kevin Kwan because it requires more than just strength. “You can rely on tools that don’t require as much strength to win points,” says Kwan (CAS’15, Questrom’15). “You don’t need to be like a LeBron James.”