My Quidditch Life

Julia Thomas, USC (Beater)

USC is well known for having an absolutely stacked Beater corps.  Names like Spencer Gold, Nicte Sobrino, and Charlie Capron are well known throughout the Quidditch community.  What people don’t necessarily know about USC’s beaters is that perhaps the scariest one of them to go up against is none of the aforementioned stars, but is Julia Thomas. Considering she is one of my closest friends in the Quidditch community, the fact that (on the pitch) she scares me should tell you quite a bit about how good she is.

One of Julia’s strengths is her strong arm.  She has no problem hitting opposing players who are several feet away.  It’s quite difficult for opposing beaters to catch Julia’s throws, because not only are they well-placed, they are thrown with a good bit of speed and power.  But her throws aren’t reckless.  She knows how to control the bludger’s rebound quite well, meaning she can throw hard without having to run 30 feet to go pick up the bludger again.

Julia’s biggest strengths, however, are without a doubt her intensity and aggressiveness.  If you’ve never seen Julia play, I’m not sure you can have a correct understanding of what the term “intense” means in quidditch.  Off the pitch, Julia is super friendly and cool.  On the pitch, it appears that she takes severe offense that anyone would dare to challenge her team, and will hunt down pretty much every member of the opposing team mercilessly and relentlessly.  Pretty much any time she comes at someone while holding a bludger, you can see from the look on her poor opponent’s face that the only thing going through their mind at that moment is “OH S**T!” 

If she doesn’t have a bludger, rest assured that she will soon have one, probably at the expense of an opposing Beater who will be in a fair deal of pain.  So many Beaters hesitate to be physically aggressive, even though it’s allowed within the rules.  Not Julia.  She doesn’t play dirty by any means, but she is extremely aggressive in obtaining bludgers.  She is constantly moving around the pitch, making plays and obtaining bludgers.  When she is on the pitch, it’s almost a given that her team will have bludger control.

Julia gives her team pretty much everything she’s got.  At the end of almost all of USC’s games, Julia looks exhausted.  That’s understandable, considering how relentless she is on the pitch.  In sports terms, she’s got a motor that’s always running.

She may not get the recognition of some of her fellow USC beaters, but Julia Thomas is one of the fiercest and most fearsome competitors in the entire sport of quidditch, at any position.