Cleveland, OH–When everyone else left, Alabama guard Max Scharnowski stayed.
Scharnowski had just finished his second open tryout to be a walk-on, but he didn’t know if he’d done enough. The Elgin, Illinois, native and three other prospective players had just finished a four-on-four scrimmage against Alabama’s current walk-ons when they were approached by an Alabama staffer who asked if they’d like to stay on the balcony in Alabama’s facility to watch its practice.
Whether it was because of class or other duties, every other walk-on candidate went their separate ways. Scharnowski walked up the steps and plopped down on the balcony, though. The then-Alabama sophomore just wanted to see Nate Oats run a practice since he’d heard of the game-like environment that was often created on the practice floor. He just wanted the 15-page packet he filled out in order to try out not to go to waste.
Scharnowski was happy with that, until everything just happened all of a sudden.
“Congratulations, can’t wait to have you on the team,” Alabama coach Nate Oats told him as he left the facility. “Think you’re gonna be a really good player for us.”
“I was so taken aback,” Scharnowski told Southeastern 16. “I thought it was gonna be like a couple days till I figured out if I made it or not. Sure enough, I made it that day.”
A year after the now-Alabama guard got to Tuscaloosa as a regular student, he was on the team. Instead of working out in the University Recreation Center, Scharnowski was now on the floor at Coleman Coliseum practicing against Mark Sears and eventual NBA draft pick Brandon Miller. He’s not just there to be there, either.
He’s made an impact.
“He’s like the glue guy off the court,” Alabama forward Mo Dioubate told Southeastern 16. “He’s always motivating, he’s always supporting, that’s something that we need on this team. We needed leadership from him.”
“He’s there for the guys,” Oats said. “He’s great on the scout team. He’s a great leader.”
When Scharnowski arrived on campus, he didn’t do it with the intention of becoming a part of Oats’ team. He knew that if the opportunity to join Alabama arose, he would have a chance to take advantage of it. He just didn’t know if it would come.
“[He was] just like a guy who thought his basketball career was over,” Alabama forward Grant Nelson, who is Scharnowski’s roommate, told Southeastern 16. “And then he just comes in and kind of surprises himself at what he could do, with the rest of his career and how much value he really has for this team.”
Scharnowski’s freshman year came in the midst of Covid-related lockdowns and isolation. It included masks, but no walk-on tryouts. Perhaps his college basketball dreams had faded for good once he turned down the few Division II and Division III schools that were coming after him.
He was ok with that, though. He was ok with never finding out how much value he could provide for a power-five program.
“I decided I kind of had to go to Alabama and just say ‘it is what it is with basketball. I’ll just go, try to do good for my career,.’” Scharnowski said. “When I went to school I didn’t have the money to go to a D-III or like a D-II on a really low scholarship. The academic scholarship wasn’t as good as Alabama, whereas at Alabama, I had free school because of my academics. I was like ‘it’s really hard to pass on free school when then you know that you would be paying maybe like $10,000 for something else.’ That’s a lot of money. That piles up after a while.”
So Scharnowski made the 10-hour, 42-minute drive from Wheaton Academy to Alabama in hopes of pursuing a degree that would put him in position to end up in a prestigious med school. It wasn’t exactly his dream, but it was the start of his new life nonetheless.
The now graduate student found his passion for medicine on a high school mission trip that sent him on a medical internship. He followed around doctors and saw how they operated. He observed. He fell in love with it. He wanted to do what those doctors did on that trip.
As a result, he went to Alabama as a biology major with a pre-med focus and currently holds a 4.0 GPA while racking up three SEC Academic Honor Roll awards in a row.
“I was like ‘alright, I’m good at this,” Scharnowski said. “‘This comes easy to me and it’s something I enjoy so why not see it through?’”
It didn’t come as easily to him, but Scharnowski also figured that after a year off he’d see it through with basketball. At that point, Scharnowski’s younger brother Drew Scharnowski–a 6-foot-9 five-man who currently plays at Belmont–was beginning his ascent towards Division I. He was working out every day. He was producing in AAU and at the high school level.
He was doing all the things that Division-I prospects do. His older brother knew he didn’t have the upside that his brother did, but figured that he shouldn’t give up yet as a result of his progress.
While the younger Scharnowski chased his Division-I dream, the older one still didn’t envision a future with it despite his family roots. Scharnowski’s dad played professionally in Europe, his oldest brother played through high school. It just hadn’t been for him like it had his younger brother and father.
Until that summer.
“I kind of started to fall in love with it again,” he said.
The love was there at that point, but it wasn’t reciprocated with a roster spot. Back to school it was for Scharnowski, who gained confidence that he could earn a spot if given a tryout as a result of that summer. The tryout still felt like a distant dream at that point, though.
Until something of note popped up on Scharnowski’s phone.
“Somebody put on like their Snapchat story that they were gonna go to the tryout,” Scharnowski said. “I knew the person and I was like, oh ‘I’m way better than them.’ Not pridefully, because all these guys are way better than me. I just try to be a good teammate, good practice player whenever they need, you all do all the hustle things. But I knew that if that kid was trying out, I was like ‘oh, I need to go try out.’ So I went and tried out.”
A typical walk-on tryout at a place like Alabama generally goes one of two ways. There’s the ‘what the heck, why not?’ guys in there and the delusional ones that believe they can do what Sears, Miller and the rest of Alabama’s roster can.
Scharnowski didn’t seem to fit either category. He just came in and knew what he needed to do. He needed to do the little things better than anyone. That was his only way. He had to dive on every loose ball. He had to be a good teammate. He had to hustle.
He also had to be the best one on the floor while doing all of those things.
Scharnowski lived up to the call.
“I just did the little things better than anyone else,” he said. “I still probably scored the most points out of anybody at the whole tryout. They put one hour on the clock after doing some stretching and three-man weave and just said ‘alright, winning five stays, game to seven’ And the whole scrimmage, my team never lost. So it was just cycling through like teams of five, there was like probably six teams and I stayed on the whole time. They just saw me the most compared to some of these other kids.”
Turns out the Alabama staff wanted to see more, too. Scharnowski was on the team. He had the uniform. He took the trips. He was in the open locker rooms speaking to the media. This formerly “above average” high schooler was now among the elite.
Since Scharnowski sat up in that balcony watching Alabama go to work, he’s been on the practice floor it overlooks every day for the last three years. He’s also appeared in 25 games, including three NCAA Tournament games.
Pretty good for the guy who thought he had hung up the sneakers for good.
“It’s been a great journey,” Scharnowski said. “I’m really thankful to be here for it.”
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