The superstar with the unpronounceable name
Veteran sportswriter and Euroleague.net collaborator Vladimir Stankovic has been following the best basketball on the continent longer than almost anyone journalist, writing for decades about the sport in major publications in both Serbia and Spain. Once again this season, he offers a blog that honors the history of European basketball - even while history keeps being made!
Next Thursday the Turkish Airlines Euroleague Game of the Week will be Partizan mt:s against Real Madrid. The cameras will bring the legendary Pionir Arena to the basketball world again. A show is guaranteed in the stands with fans that have become a brand of Partizan and Belgrade. But Real Madrid is the most uncomfortable rival for the Serbian champs. These teams have faced each other 16 times over the years with 15 wins for the Blancos. The only Partizan win came recently, in the 2008-09 season when current Madrid player Novica Velickovic starred for Partizan in an 81-77 victory. Alas, Velickovic is now injured and unable to contribute in front of his old fans. Before Velickovic, several Partizan players had played in Real Madrid: Drazen Dalipagic, Nikola Loncar, Sasha Djordjevic, Ratko Varda, Blagota Sekulic...
The first duel between Partizan and Real Madrid took place in 1979-80 in the old Champions Cup. Partizan, with Dusan Ivkovic as coach, had just won its second Yugoslavian League title led by the duo of Kicanovic and Dalipagic, However, Kicanovic could not play in Europe while doing his military service. Partizan visited Madrid on December 20, 1979 and lost 110-83. Walter Szczerbiak scored 30 points, Wayne Brabender 23, Rafa Rullan 20, Randy Meister 15, Juan Antonio Corbalan 14 and Luis Maria Prada 6. For Partizan, Dalipagic's 32 points were totally useless except for being his passport to sign for the Spanish team two years later. The second game was played on February 14, 1980 in front of 6,000 fans at Pionir. After a balanced first half (54-54) Real Madrid's quality prevailed and the game ended 87-100. Meister and Szczerbiak had 22 points apiece, Corbalan 12, Rullan 10. It was the first time – and if memory serves, also the last – that I saw Szczerbiak live. I knew him well because Yugoslavian TV always broadcasted the title games of the Champions Cup and even the Intercontinental Cup, competitions in which Real Madrid always went far in the 1970s.
Walter was a true star. A player admired in all the gyms he played in. Aside from being a great player, he was a true gentleman, both on and off court. That night at Pionir I didn't even imagine that, years later, I would be able to meet him and maintain a good relationship with him. In fact, I am already looking forward to our next encounter, to take place in February at the Spanish King's Cup in Barcelona. Szczerbiak works as an agent for the Spanish League in the United States and he's always at the event. Walter always jokes that I am one of the few people who know how to pronounce his last name correctly. Truly, for most people it's almost impossible to utter the "sh" sound followed by "tch". Two consonants at the beginning of his name, which comes from the Ukrainian word "scerba". But his last name was only a problem for TV announcers everywhere. For the rest of us, the great scorer was only Walter. Always Walter.
Seven years of glory
The 1979-80 season was the seventh and last for Walter at Real Madrid. It finished as it started, with triumphs. Real Madrid beat Maccabi 89-85 in the final played on March 27 in West Berlin. Walter "only" scored 16 points, a tad less than his average of 21.1 up to that point. His best nights were against TUS Leverkusen (37 points) and Den Bosch (33). Rullan was the best scorer with 27 points that night while Josean Querejeta, the current Caja Laboral president, scored 2 for the Whites. Berlin was the end of the brilliant career for Szczerbiak. During seven years in Madrid he won four Spanish Leagues (1974, 1975, 1976, 1977), three European Cups (1974, 1978, 1980), a Spanish Cup (1977) and three Intercontinental Cups (1976, 1977, 1978). He played four seasons with scoring averages over 30 points, and that was before three-pointers. Real Madrid had the luxury of keeping him only for the Champions Cup because of the limit on foreigners in the domestic league. He was a born shooter with excellent technique: elegant and fast. He was also a solid rebounder. For many, and for me too, he is one of the best Americans to have ever played in Europe.
Thanks to his huge talent and hard work during his youth, life gave back to Walter a part that was stolen from him in his childhood. He was born on August 21, 1949 in Hamburg, the city where his parents, fleeing from Ukraine, were waiting for the migration documents to get into the United States. Once in New York, he fell in love with basketball. In school tourneys and street games in the playgrounds, the talent shown by Walter caught the attention of many colleges. He chose George Washington. In his senior year he averaged 22.1 points. That same year he was picked by the Phoenix Suns in the fourth round of the draft with the 65th pick. He signed a non-guaranteed contract and after the summer he was off the team. Walter had a tryout with Pittsburgh of the ABA League, then the competition of the NBA, but at the end of the season he was without a team again. That's when Real Madrid entered his life. Coach Pedro Ferrandiz, well assisted and informed by his friend Victor de la Serna, aka Vicente Salaner, a well-known columnist at Mundo del siglo XXI, offered Walter five guaranteed years and that was how his European adventure started.
Debut against Barcelona... with 47 points!
Walter made his debut with style on November 11, 1973. Real Madrid beat its archrival FC Barcelona 125-65 – by 60 points! A rookie Walter, with his unpronounceable surname, finished the game with 47 points. Soon enough he was the fans' new idol. He shined in game after game. He finished the season with the triple crown: Spanish League, Spanish Cup and Champions Cup against Ignis Varese in Nantes 84-82. Walter, Luyk and Rullan had 14 points each, Brabender 22 and Cabrera 16. In the following season they also won the League and the Cup and stretched the winning streak to 88 games, more than three years long. Against Mataró, Walter scored 53 points but on February 8, 1976 he outdid himself by setting a record that still prevails today: against Breogan, in a blowout by 92 points (140-48), Walter finished with 65 points! His numbers were unbelievable: 25 of 27 shots (even though most of them were shot from where three-point territory would have been later) and 15 of 17 free throws. His record hides also an anecdote. Since in the previous game he had only scored 16 points, Martin Tello, a journalist at the As newspaper in Spain, wrote that games in the morning didn't seem to suit Walter. The result? A record that prevails today.
He won his second European crown in 1978, again against Mobilgirgi Varese 75-67. The final was played in Munich and Walter led all scorers with 26 points. Two of his three European crowns were won in Germany, the country where he was born.
After seven wonderful years, he had to leave. Real Madrid didn't re-sign him. That hurt him, but he was only 31 and he wanted to play more. Udine, then in the Italian second division, offered him a two-year contract and he accepted. After that he was back in New York and he thought about putting an end to his career, but a call from his great friend Carmelo Cabrera, the Real Madrid guard in the years they shared together, lured him into playing for Gran Canaria. Cabrera also called Prade and Meister and he managed to reunite the four friends from Real Madrid's Golden Era. "Old" Walter responded with 23.1 points and 7.3 rebounds and an average of 19.0 index rating in over 37 minutes on court. And again without three-pointers, which would be established that same summer of 1984, when the genius named Walter Szczerbiak definitely retired. For years he has been technical consultant of the Spanish League and many of the American players that shined in the league were recommended by him. In he meantime, his son Wally became a pro himself, in the NBA. Later a group of authors wrote a great book called "Foreigners in the ACB" with a prologue by Szczerbiak himself. However, I would like to see another book: "Foreigners before the ACB". There were many and very good, all led by Walter Szczerbiak.
POSTED BY
Vladimir Stankovic -Euroleague.net
DATE:
Saturday, November 05, 2011