Buddy II; AG grad Quertinmont followed in father’s footsteps
Submitted photo
Buddy Quertinmont, the son of Jules Buddy Quertinmont, is shown during his playing days at Albert Gallatin.
Submitted photo
Buddy Quertinmont, the son of Jules Buddy Quertinmont, grabs a rebound against Waynesburg during his playing days at Albert Gallatin.
Submitted photo
Buddy Quertinmont, the son of Jules Buddy Quertinmont, is shown during his playing days at Albert Gallatin.
You could make a case the Quertinmont family is the first family of basketball in Fayette County. The patriarch, the late Jules Buddy Quertinmont, was an outstanding high school player and a standout at West Virginia University. Son Buddy followed with a solid high school and college career and so did daughter Lori.
“We were a basketball family,” the younger Quertinmont said. “We still are actually, Lori and I were lucky we got to grow up in the shadow of the Golden Age of West Virginia Mountaineeer basketball. I have a lot of add-on uncles that are those Mountaineer guys from the 1960s. Lori is three years younger than I am.
“Dad exposed us to basketball, but he wasn’t hard on us. He was instrumental in getting Albert Gallatin elementary basketball going. We got to stay up late at night and go to the Coliseum and watch games. Coach Gale Catlett was a teammate of my dad, so Lori and I got to see the players after the game.
“When I got to high school Dad got after me about working out and doing drills, but he didn’t push hard from that aspect. He just kept exposing us to it. We knew that he was the Fayette County and West Virginia all-star. It was just exposure, he wasn’t the hard-core drill sergeant with us.”
Quertinmont started playing basketball at a young age.
“I started playing in third grade,” Quertinmont recalls. “Both of us started playing in third grade. Lori will tell you back in those days she had to play with the boys and she was hanging out with me a lot so it was older boys and that toughened her up a little bit. When we would play as kids she was more like a little brother and we didn’t take it easy on her. She needed that because she ended up playing Division-1 basketball.
“I was grounded with fundamentals. I started going to the Tri-State basketball camp when I was eight years old. Coach (Ray) Trincia was co-director under Rudy Marisa and I went at such a young age because coach Trincia’s son Ray was in high school and I had somebody to watch over me. I did that camp every year up until I was a senior in high school. You know how old-school Ray Trincia was and I got to spend some time in Morgantown with coach Gale Catlett.”
Quertinmont was part of some very competitive hoop teams at Albert Gallatin where he played four seasons.
In 1983-84 AG went 6-18 and lost in the playoffs to eventual AA state champion Washington, 100-60.
“That year everybody made the playoffs,” Quertinmont recalled. “Washington beat us and they were on their way to a state championship that year. I was a ninth grader and I had two ninth grade teammates and coach Ray Trincia was starting us because he was looking to the future. I think it paid off because we won our section the next three years.”
In 1984-85 the Colonials were 12-6 and lost in the WPIAL playoffs to Southmoreland, 77-62. In Quertinmont’s junior season in 1985-86 AG went 17-4 and made a run in the WPIAL playoffs beating Carmichaels, 47-41, and Serra, 80-66, before losing to Neshannock, 70-67. They defeated Marion Center in the PIAA playoffs, 60-56, and then lost to eventual state champ Washington, 89-55.
“We were in a duel section in 85-86,” Quertinmont pointed out, “We made the semifinals and Neshanock beat us. I had 32 points in the game against Serra, shots were dropping. Washington got us again in the PIAA playoffs on their way to a second state championship. The one year I was going against Brian Davis and then as a junior against Ronnie Moore.”
Albert Gallatin was primed for a big season in 1986-87. They went 22-2, losing to Southmoreland in the Colonial Classic, 68-63. They reeled off 16 wins in a row, including 60-53 over Charleroi in the WPIAL playoffs. They were upset in the next round of the playoffs, losing to Carlynton, 60-59.
“We were preseason No. 1 in Double-A in the WPIAL,” Quertinmont said. “We held that ranking all year long and Carlynton upset us. I think playing in that duel section with some of those Single-A teams hurt us in the playoffs when I look back on things.”
Quertinmont finished his career at Albert Gallatin with 1,514 points. He had his high-point game of 36 points in a 54-50 win over California on Dec. 17, 1986.
“I remember that a little bit,” Quertinmont said. “They had a boy named Pat Stewart I believe that was a good player. That year coach Trincia controlled the game, the starters had to sit a little bit in the fourth quarter. I would hit that 22- or 25-point mark and he would sit me down. That game he left me in longer than normal because it was a close game. That California team was coached by Bucky Bolyard.”
Quertinmont had a good relationship with coach Trincia, who remains a close friend of the Quertinmont family to this day.
“Coach Trincia was a good coach,” Quertinmont opined. “He was a solid guy and I’m glad I had him for four years. Back in those days you didn’t play in high school until you were a sophomore, but they went ahead and brought us up as freshmen and I’m glad I got in that extra year. He pushed you pretty hard, by the time I was a senior I understood where he was coming from.”
Quertinmont looks back fondly at his days at AG and his teammates.
“I had good teammates like Eddie Stalewski and Shawn Hall, we were the three ninth graders that came up,” Quertinmont remembered. “My junior year we had a big guy playing with us, Tom Carafa. We had that good senior year, but the best team I played on was actually my junior year.”
Quertinmont garnered All-Section honors three straight years and was named Herald-Standard Fayette County High School Player of the Year as a senior.
When Quertinmont graduated from Albert Gallatin in 1987 he looked for a landing spot to play college basketball.
“Back when I was a kid you kind of got your name out there in the newspapers, but also it was basketball camps,” Quertinmont said. “I had one Division-1 offer, Towson State. West Virginia was always an option for me, but it was more because of my history. It wasn’t because of my athletic skill, I was probably too slow to play Division-1. Waynesburg was an option. The biggest reason why I didn’t go there was they were switching over from NAIA to NCAA and coach Marisa lost all his scholarships.
“During the Fayette County All-Star game at Laurel Highlands I had a decent game and coach John Unice was there and he said come down and visit Washington & Jefferson. I went for a visit and liked it and I thought it was a good fit for me.”
Quertinmont played four seasons at W&J on squads that finished 13-9 in 1987-88, 12-10 in 1988-89, 13-10 in 1989-90 and 10-12 in 1990-91.
“We were competitive,” Quertinmont said. “My teammate Dave Branchen when we left there was the all-time leading scorer at W&J. We probably should have been a little bit better. Grove City was the team to beat back in those days. For me there wasn’t that same intensity with basketball as there was at AG. Maybe it was immaturity.”
At W&J Quertinmont tallied 495 points during his career.
Quertinmont got along well with coach Unice.
“I had a good relationship with coach Unice,” Quertinmont said. “He was super nice and a good coach. I wish he would have cracked the whip on me a little bit harder.”
After college Quertinmont continued playing a lot of basketball.
“I played a lot of basketball in different leagues after college,” Quertinmont recalled. “I probably gave up playing about 1996.”
He went into the family business coming out of college.
“Right out of college I started working for Dad at Point Marion Ford,” Quertinmont said. “Made my way around all the departments and then about 1994-95 I started running the business and Dad and I worked together until 2011.
“I haven’t worked for over a year. Covid-19 has slowed things down. I worked at turning around another dealership that we had a small interest in and got it turned around and sold it in 2019.
“Not working allowed me to spend time with my two kids. I’m just now getting the urge to get back out there and I’m going to try something different. I’ve been doing a lot of coaching with girls basketball elementary age and helping with the middle school and I like being around basketball again.”
Quertinmont, 52, resides in Lake Lynn with his wife Valerie who he married in 2006. They have two children, Maggie, 12, and Jules William, 9.
Looking back on his hoop career Quertinmont is content.
“I have no regrets,” Quertinmont said. “Relationships is the main thing that came out of it.”
George Von Benko’s “Memory Lane” column appears in weekly in the Herald-Standard. He also hosts a sports talk show on WMBS-AM radio from 10 a.m. to noon on Saturdays.