Fromholz Preps for Season, Thesis in Hand

While most of the members of Harvard's softball team are entertaining thoughts about their warm spring break in Florida, their Co-Captain, Julia Fromholz, is focusing her attention on a more grandiose project these days: her thesis.

In between softball practices, this senior Social Studies concentrator is currently putting the finishing touches on her thesis, "The California Drought Policy and Water Marketing."

"I wrote a junior paper on the environmental aspect of water distribution in California," Fromholz says. "With the six-year drought, it is a heated issue in California now. Besides, I love my state."

Born in San Francisco, Calif., Fromholz moved to southern California when she was 10. Now residing in Pasadena, Fromholz attended Polytechnic High School, where her softball career began on a rocky note.

"I started playing little-league baseball when I was eight," Fromholz said. "I was the worst kid on the team. I played right field and batted ninth. I either walked or struck-out."

Playing baseball, though, increased Fromholz's confidence and she soon switched to playing softball. She began pitching when she was 12 and started practicing with a pitching coach a year later.

Once she got hooked on softball, she couldn't let go. "I always played a lot of sports-I played soccer and ran cross-country in high school," Fromholz says. "I enjoy watching baseball [she's an avid Dodgers fan] and once I became a pitcher and started going to the pitching coach, softball became my favorite sport.

"I used to travel an hour away once a week with my sister to work with the pitching coach. I spent so much time practicing that I began to enjoy the game even more as I became better and could reap the rewards," the Dunster senior says.

Her dedication to and enthusiasm for the sport did, indeed, pay off. Fromholz was named First-Team All-California Interscholastic Federation her junior and senior years in high school, and Most Valuable Player and Scholar Athlete of the Prep League during her senior year.

Softball played an important part in her decision to attend Harvard.

"Princeton has always had such a strong softball program that I didn't see much playing time. Harvard had a young program and I thought I would have a better chance of playing more often," Fromholz says. "I was right. I definitely made the right decision. I've loved Harvard and softball has been a big part of my experience here."

Harvard's softball team, which experienced a resurrection last year with a much-improved 21-17-1 record, is looking to be even more competitive in the Ivies this year, with help from new first-year talent.

"We have seven very talented freshmen," Fromholtz says. "We have five pitchers. That's unbelievable. My freshman and sophomore years, I was the only healthy pitcher. Last year we had two pitchers but now we have a lot of depth. Everyone on the team is very excited about it."

Besides playing softball and working on her thesis, Fromholz works as a member of the Student Advisory Committee of the Institute of Politics and is a co-founder of a Phillips Brooks House Civics Project Program, which directs civic education classes for inner-city junior high school students.

This summer, Fromholtz hopes to bike across America. After that, softball will take a back seat to other, more long-ranging concerns.

"I plan to go back to law school hopefully but not right away," Fromholtz said. "I've applied to the Teach for America and the CORO Fellowship, a government and public service fellowship, programs, or I might get a job teaching English abroad. I plan to relax for a couple of years from academia."