Clayton (Bud) Marquette put Beaver County on the map in girls’ gymnastics.
During his stint as coach of the Rochester Turners girls gymnasts
in the 1950s, his teams won ten state titles and many national
honors. Bud coached two Olympic gymnasts –
Judy Hult Howe
of the Rochester Turners, who competed in the 1956 games, and Cathy
Rigby Mason of the Southern California Acro Team, who was the star
of the US Olympic Women’s Gym Team in 1972. Bud moved to Long
Beach, California, in 1957 and founded the famous SCATS in 1960. He
toured nationally and internationally with the SCATS for fourteen
years and brought them to Beaver County twice. They won “Best in the
World” citation for their 1969 performance at an international meet
in Basel, Switzerland. Bud has served as an associate Olympic coach
and as a director of the US Olympic women’s gymnastic finals. He was
one of the founders of the US Gymnastics Federation and in 1976 was
named honorary director of the first American Cup Gymnastics
Championships at Madison Square Garden. After a brief retirement,
Bud returned to harness coaching of Long Beach Turners gym teams.
Bud graduated from Ambridge High School and attended Indian
Normal School and Slippery Rock State College. He was a state and
national gymnastics champion in his youth.
Clayton (Bud) Marquette put Beaver County on the map in girls’ gymnastics.
During his stint as coach of the Rochester Turners girls gymnasts
in the 1950s, his teams won ten state titles and many national
honors. Bud coached two Olympic gymnasts –