Fred Quartlebaum

Fred Quartlebaum

Director of Student-Athlete Development

Fred Quartlebaum joined the Kansas men’s basketball staff as director of student-athlete development in June 2013. In three seasons at KU, Quartlebaum has been part of Kansas’ 10th, 11th and 12th-straight Big 12 regular-season championships, one Big 12 Tournament title, two in-season tourney titles and an NCAA Championship Elite Eight run in 2016. Additionally, Quartlebaum has seen five Jayhawks move on to the NBA, including Andrew Wiggins and Joel Embiid, the No. 1 and No. 3 overall selections in the 2014 NBA Draft.

In the summer of 2015, Quartlebaum was an assistant coach which guided the USA National Team, made up mainly of University of Kansas student-athletes and KU coaches and staff, to the gold medal at the World University Games in Gwangju, Korea, by posting an 8-0 record. The medal was USA’s first in three World University Games and the first gold, 14th overall, for the Americans since 2005.

Quartlebaum has a long resume of basketball coaching experience, which encompasses more than 20 years. He came to KU after working as associate director of PACT (Personalized Achievement Contract), a leadership and mentoring program at Mercy College in New York. Additionally, in 2010, he started his own company, 212 Hoops, which combines his experience developing collegiate athletes to youth basketball. Prior to his position at Mercy College, Quartlebaum spent six seasons as an assistant coach at St. John’s under current KU assistant coach Norm Roberts.

Following a stint in the high school ranks, Quartlebaum then was an assistant coach at Navy (1992-96), Towson (1996-97), Holy Cross (1997-98) and Fairfield (1998-99) before joining Matt Doherty at Notre Dame in 1999-2000. He accompanied Doherty to North Carolina (2000-03) where he played a part in recruiting four McDonald’s All-Americans that eventually would win an NCAA title in 2005. After UNC, he was an assistant for one season under head coach Wayne Morgan at Iowa State (2003-04) before joining Roberts’ staff at St. John’s.

While at St. John’s, Quartlebaum attended the Black Coaches Association’s (BCA) “Achieving Coaching Excellence” (ACE) program. He was also named to the NCAA Men’s Basketball Ethics Coalition.

Quartlebaum played collegiately at Fordham where he was a four-year letterwinner from 1985-89. He helped the Rams to an NIT appearance in 1988 and was co-captain his senior season. The Dobbs Ferry, New York, native graduated from Fordham in 1989 with a degree in communications.

Quartlebaum is married to the former Christy Stephens. The couple has two sons, Trey and Mayson.