Former Southern University Great Rickie Weeks Named Milwaukee Brewers Associate Manager

In the wake of Craig Counsell’s defection to the Chicago Cubs, the Milwaukee Brewers are bringing another franchise favorite back to the dugout.

Rickie Weeks, a member of the team’s Wall of Honor and a 2011 National League all-star, was added to new manager Pat Murphy’s staff as associate manager, the Brewers announced Wednesday in officially naming Murphy the 20th skipper in franchise history.

The Brewers have had an especially busy couple of days, with the American Family Field funding package passing through the state Senate on Tuesday while also pulling off a trade.

It’s the latest promotion in what’s been a quick rise through the organization for Weeks, 41, who earlier in the month was promoted to special assistant to player development after spending his first two seasons in the front office as the Brewers’ assistant to player development.

It was his career as a standout player that endeared Weeks to Milwaukee fans.

Selected second overall by the Brewers in the 2003 draft, Weeks went on to debut in the major leagues later that season and ultimately spent 11 seasons with the organization as a powerful leadoff-hitting second baseman.

Weeks’s name is all over the franchise record book, as he ranks sixth all-time in runs and walks (684 and 492), seventh in stolen bases (126), eighth in triples (32), ninth in at-bats (4,056) and 10th in games (1,142),doubles (203), extra-base hits (383) and total bases (1,720).

His best season came in 2010, when in 160 games he hit .269 with 29 home runs and 83 runs batted in while compiling an OPS of .830. Weeks led the majors with 754 plate appearances and in being hit by pitches with 25, and led the National League in at-bats with 651.

Weeks’s lone all-star nod came in 2011, when he hit .269 with 20 homers and 49 RBI with an OPS of .818, but he was limited to 118 games by a severe ankle sprain he suffered trying to beat out a hit in late July.

He bounced back with a productive 2012 campaign in which he played 157 games, then capped his Brewers tenure as a player in 2014. Weeks was named to the team’s Wall of Honor in 2019 along with ex-teammates JJ Hardy and Trevor Hoffman.

Weeks went on to play 37 games for the Seattle Mariners in 2015, 108 games with the Arizona Diamondbacks in 2016 and 37 games with the Tampa Bay Rays in 2017.

He finished his career as a .246 hitter with 161 homers and 474 RBI in 1,324 games. In 1,142 games with the Brewers, Weeks was a .249 hitter with 148 home runs and 430 RBI.

After his playing days were over, Weeks went back to school and earned a degree in sports management at Florida International University.

He indicated to the Journal Sentinel when he was hired by the Brewers in 2022 that his baseball journey might not end with the front office.

“I’m pretty open-minded right now but, at the same token, I have some things in my head that I want to do,” he said at the time. “It’s not for me to even say right now but you always want to climb, you always want to get to the top.

“For me, it’s just coming in and trying to help out and assist and the biggest thing, to create relationships. It’s coming in and creating those bonds, creating a team atmosphere because that’s always going to be the best thing for everybody.”

It’s interesting to note that Weeks’s coaching background is limited to what he’s done the past two seasons in his player development role.

But then again, Counsell had zero coaching experience when he took the managerial reins for the Brewers in 2015.

In his new role as Murphy’s right-hand man, it’s assumed Weeks will learn the ropes as a bench coach with the possibility some point down the road of replacing the soon-to-be-65 Murphy as skipper if all goes according to plan.

Source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Rank	School
1	Bethune-Cookman University
2	North Carolina A&T University
3	Florida A&M University
4	Texas Southern University
5	Alabama State University
6	Jackson State University
7	Prairie View A&M
8	Delaware State University
9	Grambling State University
10	Southern University

Rank	School
1	Albany State University
2	Talladega College
3	West Virginia State
4	Savannah State University
5	Edward Waters University
6	Bluefield State University
7	Florida Memorial University
8	Wiley University
9	Miles College
10	Xavier Univ of Louisiana

Former Southern University Great Rickie Weeks Named Milwaukee Brewers Associate Manager

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