11-year-old Prince George's County native is a pool-playing phenom

BOWIE, Md. - Center Pocket in Bowie has billiards, beer, and an 11-year-old pool-playing phenom who goes by the name of Jawz.

"My dad gave me that nickname because I was killing people on the pool table," D’Angelo "Jawz" Spain told FOX 5. 

Nearby players agreed. When it comes to pool, the boy is most definitely a shark.

It all started when Spain was just four-years-old. 

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"One day we went out to go try to get a karaoke machine or something like that," Frank Spain II, Jawz' dad, recalled. "[My wife] was like where are we gonna put it at? I said we can make space."

"The only place we had to put it was in our living room, so we had to take our couches out, move them all out, and we did get a pool table," said Jawz' mom Angela Spain. "He did talk me into it."

Jawz never looked back. He now plays in tournaments all over the country, including in New York and New Orleans. 

Jawz is also currently the top-ranked pool player for the 13-and-under division of the Junior International Championships.

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The hope is he’ll eventually beat the pros. For now though, Jawz is more than satisfied — beating his dad.

"When you lose to him one time you feel like you lost to him 100 times because he’s gonna talk trash," Frank laughed. "He’s gonna rub it in. He’s gonna make you lose sleep over it."

Getting to all the tournaments isn’t cheap, and the Spain’s pay for travel themselves. They’ve set up a gofundme page in case people would like to help out.