Veteran basketball coach Rick Albro just ended his first season as an assistant coach with the Titans. Coach Albro joined the team in late June, 2014, and brings over 40 years of coaching to the Motor City.
Coach Albro has recorded over 450 career wins in his time as a high school and collegiate coach. He has spent the last four years (2009-13) as an athletic director at Northview High School in Grand Rapids, Michigan, with the last three on the sidelines for the girls basketball program.
Prior to that, Coach Albro was an assistant women’s basketball coach at Michigan State for three years (2007-10), helping the Spartans to three-straight 20-win campaigns, a WNIT runner-up effort and two NCAA Tournament appearances with a Sweet 16 run in 2009. He was the academic liaison at MSU and assisted with opponent scouting and game planning. He also worked with post players and tutored the development of All-American Allyssa DeHaan.
His other collegiate coaching stops came as an assistant men’s basketball coach at Cleveland State from 2003-06 and as the head men’s coach at Aquinas College from 1990-2003. The winningest coach in Aquinas history, he was named the Wolverine Hoosier Athletic Conference (WHAC) Coach of the Year after setting a school record with a 23-10 mark in 1999-2000, and he twice earned NAIA District Coach of the Year honors. While at Aquinas, Coach Albro was also the school's sports information director, handling all the publicity for the Saints' athletic program.
Coach Albro has also been a head coach at a number of high schools including the boy’s team at Grandville (2006-07) and East Grand Rapids (1978-90), where he also led the girl’s squad for three seasons (1983, 1987-88). At East Grand Rapids, Coach Albro's boy’s program won four conference, six district and three regional titles, and a made trip to the state tournament semifinals.
He has a history of developing players, including among his East High graduates are Garde Thompson, who went on to star at Michigan, and Jim Boylen, who played at Maine before starting an NBA coaching career, which included two NBA championships with the Houston Rockets.
In addition to his coaching duties, Coach Albro worked for 15 years (1988-2003) for the Michigan Camp of Champions. He was the founder of the residential basketball camps for high school boys and girls, attended by more than 4,000 athletes. He has also worked and been hired as a basketball clinician at several prestigious camps throughout his career, including the Michigan State Basketball Camp and the Five Star Camp in Pittsburgh, Pa.
Albro's coaching career began at St. Charles (Mich.) High School, where he served as the head golf coach and JV basketball coach for three years and the athletic director for two years. He then moved on to Marlette (Mich.) High School, coaching the boys' varsity basketball team from 1974-78 in addition to being the athletic director for three years.
He graduated from Western Michigan in 1971 with a bachelor's degree in Business Administration and earned his master's degree in Education Administration from Central Michigan in 1985.
