Albert Barthelme
Albert Lewis Barthelme Sr. was an American basketball coach at the high school, college and professional levels.
Barthelme coached the Loyola College Greyhounds basketball team for the 1944–1945 season, playing for the team the following season. From 1946 to 1950 he was athletics director, basketball and football coach at Towson Catholic High School where one of his students was future NBA player and coach Gene Shue.
Barthelme was head basketball coach at the University of Baltimore from 1950 to 1954. Using an offense-dominated approach dubbed "firehouse" basketball, he was the subject of numerous newspaper stories about the high-scoring games. Seven games into the 1953–1954 season, the team was averaging well over 100 points per game.
An assistant coach and publicist for the Baltimore Bullets 1954–1955 season, Barthelme was named head coach on November 20, 1954 but would only coach three games before the club went out of business on November 27. However, due to the abrupt nature of the original Bullets team shutting down operations as a franchise, both the final games Bee coached for Baltimore and the only games Barthelme coached for the Bullets weren't officially recognized by the NBA. As such, Barthelme could be considered the only truly official unofficial head coach in NBA history due to his unique status with coaching in the NBA.
In 1961 Barthelme coached basketball for St. Mary's Seminary Junior College and Patuxent Naval Base.
Following his brief NBA stint, Barthelme worked in public relations at Carling Brewing Co., later becoming a beer distributor in 1962. From 1966 to 1985 he served as supervisor of the St. Mary's County, Maryland Youth Commission which later became the Department of Parks and Recreation.