See Me Now

Sporting News, The, Nov 30, 1998 by Mike DeCourcy

Wally Szczerbiak of Miami (Ohio) drew little interest from major colleges four years ago but has blossomed into the best small forward in the nation

You knew there had to be a story like this, a story in which one of the big-time college coaches just flat-out missed on a future star. Of course, they all missed on Wally Szczerbiak, but this was from close range.

Georgia Tech coach Bobby Cremins was in the stands at Sonny Vaccaro's ABCD Camp at Fairleigh Dickinson University in the summer of 1994 when he was approached by Walt Szczerbiak, a former pro in the American Basketball Association and various European countries. Szczerbiak also scouts the U.S. for the Spanish pro league, so he's not exactly your average dad. He requested Cremins take a look at his son, a skinny kid who was making jump shot after jump shot at the camp.

"I was focused on Wally. I saw how well he was playing," Walt says. "I saw Wally playing almost perfect basketball, but being overshadowed by the super-athletic types: Shareef Abdur-Rahim, Terrell Stokes ..."

Cremins saw nothing, really, because he never bothered to look. Other players had gotten his attention. But he has not forgotten the oversight. When Tech guard Dion Glover became Szczerbiak's teammate on the United States team for the Goodwill Games this summer, Cremins sought out the Szczerbiaks for a conversation--and a confession.

"The only thing he said to me and my dad," Wally says, "was, `I made a big mistake. I really missed the boat.'"

Szczerbiak, the No. 1-ranked small forward in the nation by The Sporting News, plays at Miami (Ohio). As such, he won't appear on ESPN a single time during the regular season, let alone ABC, NBC or CBS. He stands 6-8, weighs 241, and was the leading scorer on the gold medal-winning Goodwill Games team. And though he is Melrose Place-handsome, he could not be any more obscure if he were running deep-cover operations for the CIA.

At Miami of the Mid-American Conference, he is known as "World." This is not short for All-World. Instead, it refers to National Lampoon's Vacation, a movie Szczerbiak considers "a classic." The vacation destination in the movie is a Disneyish theme park called WallyWorld. If that doesn't seem especially clever, understand most people will go to great lengths to avoid trying to spell or pronounce S-z-c-z-e-r-b-i-a-k (Zerb-e-ak).

"Wally is one of the best shooters I've ever been around," says North Carolina State coach Herb Sendek, who recruited Szczerbiak to Miami and coached him for one season. "But I think it would be a misrepresentation or stereotype to cast him just as a shooter. He makes his teammates better and is tremendously unselfish. Perhaps his greatest attribute is his toughness."

If you expect to hear stories about him shoveling snow off the driveway in Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y., and firing 1,000-some jumpers a day, well, that's someone else. Szczerbiak is a natural who prefers playing in games to practicing alone. If he were a golfer, you would almost never find him on the practice range. He would be playing rounds against other people.

Szczerbiak's jumper is not textbook pretty. His elbows flare to the side the way shooting coaches say they shouldn't. It's a habit left over from when Szczerbiak would fling shots from behind his head, Jack Sikma-style.

"With the Sikma stroke, he was an uncanny shooter," Walt Szczerbiak says. "I told him to cut it back some because it was easier to block from behind and took longer to get off. He protested at first, and the next thing I'd see him doing it." Miami coach Charlie Coles believes what makes Szczerbiak a great player is his willingness to always strive to get better, to continually seek challenges to reach.

Szczerbiak and fellow senior Damon Frierson will try to get the RedHawks into the Top 25 this season, and there are opportunities to gain respect in the early schedule. They will strive to win the automatic NCAA Tournament bid awarded to the MAC champion, because in the MAC no team can count on an at-large selection.

The pros would be next. NBA guard Jimmy Jackson told Szczerbiak the most important element of his game to improve is ballhandling. Jackson says that once Szczerbiak handles the ball as well as a small forward needs to, he should try to handle it as well as a shooting guard, and then a point guard. So that is how he spent his summer workouts.

Szczerbiak's team orientation is evident in the fact that he didn't have a breakout season until his third year. His scoring average of 24.4 points per game was nearly double his sophomore numbers, and he shot an incredible .492 from 3-point range. But that explosion was mostly about opportunity. Power forward Devin Davis had been the RedHawks' star in Szczerbiak's first two seasons, and Szczerbiak willingly subjugated his game.

"He's beautiful," Coles says. "In this business, you've got guys you (have to) get on every day, and a couple that it's maybe every week. You don't have to do that with him at all. He comes to practice with a smile on his face."