Amy Wang, N.J.’s pingpong prodigy, didn’t let Paris Olympics stop her brainy pursuits

Amy Wang is majoring in neuroscience with a minor in accounting at UCLA, taking classes in organic chemistry and physics last quarter while mulling educational options that include an MBA to help her break into the neurotech field.

Oh, yeah, and the Sewell native took some time away from her studies to pursue her hobby. She traveled the globe competing against the best table tennis players in the world, and then in the most important tournament here in the U.S., mowed down the competition.

She qualified for the Paris Olympics.

In her spare time.

“She is a different animal, that’s for sure,” her brother, Allen Wang, said with a laugh over the phone. “I don’t know how she does it.”

We tend to think of the Olympics as a pursuit that requires a single-minded focus, the kind of aspirational goal that forces athletes to make enormous sacrifices in their lives just for the chance to be mentally and physically prepared for the challenge.

Not all Olympians, however, have their own Gatorade commercials. Amy Wang understands that she isn’t going to land an eight-figure contract playing pingpong like some of her basketball classmates at UCLA, so she kept a heavy course load despite the rigors of her side gig as the world’s 39th ranked table tennis player.

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Her classmates only figured out that she was trying to win a spot on Team USA when she kept missing so many lectures and labs because of the international travel. She took the same approach when she was climbing in the national rankings as a student at Washington Township High, letting the other athletes take the glory.

“My close friends know, but I don’t disclose it to a lot of people,” the 21-year-old Wang said. “When people notice that I’m absent all the time from school I sort of have to explain my situation to them, and that’s how they find out.”

The topic of her anonymity led to an odd detour during our recent interview:

ME: Have you ever been tempted to wander into a fraternity at UCLA with a pingpong table, pretend that you have no idea how to even hold the racket for a while, and then wipe the floor with all the jocks who try to play you?

HER: I don’t have time for that. I barely have time for school.

ME: It could be quite a side hustle.

HER: You mean … for money?

(It is here that I am imagining this humble college student traveling the country while hustling unsuspecting whales as the ultimate ping-pong hustler. Call Hollywood! This is the next big reality show. Even Allen Wang would later tell me, “It’s free money!”)

ME: Well, now that you mention it …

HER: Hmm. That sounds unethical.

(Dang it!)

Wang hasn’t always flown under the radar. When she was just 4, a video of her playing against father, Xiaota Wang, before a tournament went viral. She could barely see over the edge of the table, but she returned most of his shots with ease.

By then, Wang had been training for more than a year. Xiaota Wang, who moved to New Jersey from China in his late 20s, had made table tennis the center of his family’s life. He set up three tables in the basement of their suburban Gloucester County home so Amy and her two older brothers could practice at the same time for several hours a day.

Their neighbors in Sewell had no idea that this nondescript home had a pingpong production line. The father built a wheeled contraption out of wood and netting that would catch all the plastic balls and funnel them into cardboard boxes. From there, the balls could be reloaded into the robots that launched again for more training.

It wasn’t all fun and games.

“When I was a kid, I would be like, ‘Why can’t I watch TV? Why can’t I play video games? Why do I have to hit this stupid ball around for hours at a time?’” Allen Wang said. “I definitely hated it at times. When you grow up, you appreciate that it brought so much opportunity and unique experiences, and the time we had each other to hang out with as siblings.”

Xiaota Wang would lower the seats in the rear of his SUV so the kids could sleep, then shuttle the family up and down the East Coast looking for competition. Amy started training at the Lily Yip Table Tennis Center in Dunellen — home of fellow Olympian Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone — and just kept getting better.

“For our family at first, it was just a physical activity that we could all enjoy together,” Amy Wang said. “But when I qualified for the under-15 national team at 8 years old, my dad was like, ‘Uh, yeah, maybe she has some potential in this sport and we should be supporting her professionally.’”

Wang qualified for the U.S. national team at 15. She was one victory away from reaching the Tokyo Games at just 17 when a controversial call handed a match to her opponent — and prompted Wang to hang up her Joola TPE Nature blade.

For a year, she stopped competing, practicing, everything. “I was at the brink of quitting the sport,” Wang said, but when she won the first tournament she entered after her long hiatus, she figured she’d give table tennis one more shot while continuing to pursue her studies.

Wang is a longshot to become the first American to win a medal. In China, which has won 19 of the 28 medals in women’s singles, the best table tennis are professionals who train their entire lives for a chance to win gold. This is their Super Bowl.

But she’ll have multiple shots to play the spoiler, first in singles and then with her roommate, Rachel Sung, in doubles. That duo easily won a third straight U.S. women’s doubles title in Huntsville, Alabama, last week, proving that they’ll be in top form at the Olympics.

“I know going to Paris, I am the underdog,” Wang said. “There are so many good Asian and European players in the field. I’ve got to try my best, I guess, and go as far as possible.”

If she comes up short? She’ll always have the whole neuroscience thing to fall back on.

MORE N.J. OLYMPICS:

How a real-life Jersey Jedi plans to fence his way to a gold medal

The unsinkable Molly Reckford is an inspiration for all ‘middling’ athletes

McLaughlin-Levrone sets ANOTHER world record en route to Paris

Two record-setting N.J. swimmers are headed to Paris

U.S. Trials are cruel — just ask these Jersey athletes

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Steve Politi may be reached at spoliti@njadvancemedia.com.