Fans Show Support of Julia on Facebook Voting
Tryouts for this year’s Wizard Girls squad were held at the Verizon Center on the Wizards brand new practice court on July 30th. At the end of the day, the judges had selected 19 dancers for the 2011-12 squad. But that still left the team one dancer short and the fun for determining the year’s team had just begun. Jennifer, Julia and Rachel were chosen as the finalists for the last spot and the decision was taken out of the judges hands and put into the hands of the real experts, the fans.
As with seeminglyeverything these days, Facebook was the forum for the fan vote, specifically the Official Washington Wizards Facebook page. Wizards fans voted early and often and the competition for the last spot did not disappoint. Up until the very last night of voting the outcome was in doubt but a late surge for Julia put her over the top as she recorded 37% of the vote. Rachel with 34% and Jennifer with 27% were not far behind and were certainly worthy competitors.
The last member to make the squad, Julia is from Baton Rouge, Louisiana and moved to DC about a year and a half ago but is “already one of the biggest Wizards fans around.” She did her undergrad at Duke University where she was a member of the Duke Dancing Devils. She did her grad work at UC Santa Barbara inEnvironmental Management, but as she told us “focused on Environmental Media as I want to be a Science/Environmental Journalist one day.” Dance has always played a prominent role in her life and she implored fans to vote for her when the voting was tight. “I love to spin, I love to jump, (and) I’d really appreciate your votes so I can be one of the last Wizard’s Girls on the team! Go Wizards!”
After the contest was over Julia reflected on the intense process and it looked back on it with fond memories. “Oh, the Facebook vote was a crazy week but it was a lot of fun! I got all my friends to vote, family across the country (and) family across the world! So we had votes coming in from Italy, from Egypt…it was a crazy (final) day…but then it paid off in the end and I was really excited.” Facebook played a key role in Julia’s victory obviously as the voting took place on the site but Julia managed to use the power of the social networking site to not only garner herself more votes but also to reconnect with a lot of people. “It’s pretty amazing what social media can do, I reconnected with so many people in this process, I connected with people I hadn’t talked to in five, six years, parents of friends I hadn’t seen in a decade. It was a lot of fun and I’m just so impressed to see how many people are on Facebook…and how many people are now fans of the Wizards!” We’re glad it paid off for you Julia and we look forward to seeing you dance. Congratulations!
