Player of the Week – Jia Fei Lau

Jia Fei Lau is a 19 year old Kingsborough College student. Although today he places school at the top of his priorities, a couple of years ago this wasn’t the case. Jia dropped out of High School because he felt “school was boring.” A year later he earned his GED and is now maintaining a 2.7 GPA in Business Administration.

“I learned my lesson. I used to take shortcuts.”

Jia Fei Lau started playing wallball at 12 years old. After watching people play at a local park in Bensonhurst Brooklyn, Jia and his friends looked up the rules of the game. Shortly after, they visited to P.S. 205 to test their skills. The wall at P.S. 205 playground had no lines so they drew lines on the ground using chalk and created their very own court. “As kids my friends and I were determined to play,” says Jia.

Jia loves to play wallball because it brings people together. Nowadays, he plays competitively in Wallball junior tournaments. When asked, who do you admire? Jia replied “JT Chen aka The Flying Cockroach”. Jia claims the Flying Cockroach is a future “A” player and got his name because he is always jumping and diving for the ball…”he just doesn’t give up.” Jia and JT both play at Cropsey Playground in Brooklyn.

Jia is 3rd born of 4 brothers in an Asian American family. His parents work hard to provide for him and his brothers to which, his parents motivate him to succeed. “I want to succeed to pay my parents back.”

Jia wants to see kids play wallball at a younger age than he started playing. “The earlier kids begin playing wallball the greater their performance potential will be. Better players can equal a higher level of play which may help the sport grow and I believe soon we will see wallball as an official professional sport.”

Congratulations to our Player of the week, Jia Fei Lau.