Quertinmont starred at Point Marion for three years and at Albert Gallatin High School after the merger of Point Marion and Masontown.
“My first 11 years I went to Point Marion,” Quertinmont recalled. “I was in the first graduating class when they combined with Masontown.
“The merger got off to a good start because the football team went undefeated and that brought the school together, then the basketball team won the section and did very well. We had no problems at all during the merger.”

Three different coaches guided Quertinmont during his high school days.

“I played four years - I played as a freshman,” Quertinmont said. “My first coach was Harry Brownfield – he coached me my freshman year, then I had Chuck Wyda who coached my sophomore and junior years and then Rudy Marisa was my coach at Albert Gallatin.”
Quertinmont has fond memories of his high
school teammates.

“I was a co-captain at Albert Gallatin and Scott O’Neil was on my high school team,” Quertinmont offered. “He has been with First Federal, the late Bobby Hlodan was a great football star also. We’ve also lost Ron Sergeant who played center for us. Our fifth starter was Bill Secoy who has just retired from Anchor-Hocking Glass.”
The rivalries are still fresh in Quertinmont’s mind.

“It was different believe it or not from Point Marion to Albert Gallatin,” Quertinmont stated. “Point Marion played Georges and German – they were two pretty good rivals and if you remember back then Masontown did not have a basketball team. But what changed when we became seniors - Waynesburg became big on our docket and Brownsville became pretty big.”

Albert Gallatin won the section title in Quertinmont’s senior year and he topped all Pennsylvania high school players in scoring in 1960-61 with 687 points.

“We beat South Union and Redstone - they tied for second,” Quertinmont stated. “We won by a game and in the playoffs we got beat by Wilkinsburg in the first round. They beat us at the Pitt Fieldhouse.”

Quertinmont garnered second team All-State honors as a junior and was first team All-State as a senior. He was on the All-County team as a sophomore, junior and a senior. Quertinmont tallied 1,379 points in his high school career.

He still marvels at the caliber of basketball that was played in Fayette County back then.

“Back in our day in the 1950’s and 1960’s we had some great athletes,” Quertinmont explained. “We had some fantastic ballplayers - especially in basketball. Don Yates was excellent, Ron Sepic
and Uniontown.

“Laurel Highlands went through a great period - we had Wil Robinson. Fayette County can hang their hat with the best of them back in the 50’s and 60’s with both football and basketball prospects.”
Quertinmont benefited from the great playground system that Uniontown had.

“My father would take me in the summertime and drop me off on Gallatin Avenue. I became a very good friend of a boy who played for Uniontown, Frank Stanko, and we’d play there for awhile and then we’d go to Craig and Ben Franklin and Lincoln View just to play at different times of the day.

“But East End became very, very popular and eventually I got in with some of those gentlemen and they would let me play on their playground.”

After he graduated from Albert Gallatin in 1961 Quertinmont was recruited heavily.

Point Marion was only nine miles away from the West Virginia University campus and the Mountaineers were at the top of his list.
“They of course were number one at that time,” Quertinmont offered. “But I had not locked in on them. Some pretty good schools recruited me – my final three were West Virginia, Duke and Grove City.

“Actually West Virginia came out number one because it was close for my mother and father to watch me play.”

The legendary Fred Schaus recruited Quertinmont, but left to coach the Lakers and George King became the coach and he honored the scholarship that Schaus had offered.

Quertinmont became part of the great basketball tradition at WVU.
“Living here in Point Marion and being next door to it,” Quertinmont stated. “My father was an alumnus at WVU and it didn’t make any difference if it was Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday I was there to watch Jerry West and Hot Rod Hundley play and since I played there my veins are blue and gold.”

He was top scorer on WVU’s 1961-62 freshman team averaging 24.3 points. That is the fourth highest mark in freshman history. After playing behind All-America guard Rod Thorn as a sophomore, Quertinmont was a starter his last two seasons. He averaged 10.3 ppg in 1963-64 and 14.5 ppg in 1964-65. He tallied 20 points or more in a game 10 times as a Mountaineer.

During his three years in Morgantown he rang up 689 points, 178 rebounds and 97 assists in 68 games. WVU posted records of 23-8, 18-10 and 14-15 during an injury riddled senior season.

The Mountaineers won the Southern Conference championship and NCAA tournament berth in his sophomore and senior seasons.
“I played with Rod Thorn who is now Vice President of the New Jersey Nets,” Quertinmont said. “Tom Lowery, Ricky Ray who is deceased, Bob Camp – I could go on and on, but just a bunch of guys that stayed close together and we still stay close together.”
Quertinmont was also touched, as many WVU athletes were, by two ladies who lived in Morgantown.

“Ann and Erlinda Dinardi, back then when your grades went down you went to live with those two ladies,” Quertinmont stated. “Yes, I spent four out of five years with them. I lived in the house and it was a tradition and these two ladies could put their names on our diplomas – all of us. If it wasn’t for them a lot of us would have never even finished school let alone do what we did.”

Some of the highlights from his days in Morgantown were a 32-point outburst against Duke in 1965. He also notched 30 points against George Washington.

“That was a memorable night against Duke,” Quertinmont gushed. “We lost, but it probably was individually my best game ever.

“At the time Duke was number one in the country and we played them at Duke - again they beat us, but I played against Jeff Mullins and Art Heyman and they were tremendous ballplayers.”

When he graduated from WVU Quertinmont decided to play in the old Eastern Basketball League.

“I played there for three years with the Scranton Miners,” Quertinmont recalled. “The one player that I can remember from that league that I thought was a tremendous player and I had to guard him was Sihugo Green. He was probably eight or nine years older than I was at the time, but boy was he an athlete.

“That Eastern League was great – it was an excellent league. I made good money and to me it was huge money back then. I made $250 a ballgame and they gave us travel expenses. I was doing pretty well there for awhile.”

Quertinmont stayed active playing in all the independent tournaments.

“I played for a man by the name of P.I. Drake from Moundsville, WV,” Quertinmont explained. “He owned the Castle Club and we went everywhere.

“I’d be sitting at home at four o’clock in the afternoon and the phone would ring and he’d say we’re playing at eight in Wheeling - be there and that’s how we did it. I played actively until I was around 40.”
Quertinmont also did a little coaching.

“Rudy Marisa resigned at Albert Gallatin and Mr. Hanley came to me and asked me if I wanted to coach,” Quertinmont said. “My dad told me to go get this basketball out of my blood. I coached two years with Ray Trincia at Albert Gallatin and then I got the head job at Mapletown. I was there for two years and two years in a row we went 21-1 and got beat in the first round of the playoffs in 1969 and 1970.”
Basketball was out of his system and he married the former Brenda Smith and his father got ill and at the end of 1970 he took over the family business Point Marion Ford, which he sold recently.

Quertinmont, 70, thanked former Uniontown sports editor Tod Trent for his great support over the years publicizing former athletes from Fayette County.

The Quertinmont’s have been married 47 years. Son Buddy Jr. played basketball at Washington and Jefferson and daughter Lori starred at West Virginia. He has three grandchildren.

“We were in business over 60 years,” Quertinmont stated. “My two children helped to run the family business. It’s been a good life and I’ve enjoyed basketball and I’ve enjoyed sports. Basketball has been very good to the Quertinmont’s”