Born Wolodymir Szczerbiak in a
Ukrainian refugee camp in
Hamburg,
West Germany, he received a sponsorship from a Ukrainian Catholic Church to immigrate to
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in December 1951. He later attended St. Basil College, a Ukrainian Catholic minor seminary in
Stamford, Connecticut, where he first learned to play basketball. He later graduated from St. Casimir High School in Pittsburgh. Szczerbiak attended
George Washington University, where he played
college basketball. In 1985, he was inducted into the GW Athletics Hall of Fame. ==Club career==