¡®He¡¯s legit, he¡¯s the best player here': Weeks' dominant college career
Brendan Samson
@brendan_samsonIt was the spring of 2001. Rickie Weeks Jr. had just posted a 1.351 OPS in his freshman campaign for Southern University and the best players in the country were flocking to Arizona to compete with Team USA after the collegiate season.
Most of the players that is. Weeks -- who was recently named the Brewers' associate manager -- didn¡¯t receive an invite despite his monstrous year.
¡°They had the audacity to say to me, ¡®Why are we bringing in a kid from an HBCU spending $2,500 to bring him out to Arizona and he probably can¡¯t play?¡¯¡± recalled Roger Cador, Weeks¡¯ coach at Southern.
That set Cador off. After a heated phone call, Weeks got his ticket, and he didn¡¯t disappoint.
¡°Rickie goes down there and blows up and the guy calls me apologizing,¡± Cador said.
That trip to Team USA proved Weeks could perform, and excel, against all levels of competition.
¡°I¡¯m looking around and this guy¡¯s supposed to be a first-rounder and this guy¡¯s supposed to be a first-rounder... and I¡¯m thinking to myself, ¡®Even though I come from Southern University, I can probably hold up to these guys,¡¯¡± said Weeks, who did just that and became the second overall pick in the 2003 MLB Draft. ¡°I had a good week, and the rest is history.¡±
Southern won the Southwestern Athletic Conference all three seasons with Weeks, and under Cador¡¯s leadership, took home eight titles in 10 years.
The team featured dozens of MLB draftees, forcing Weeks to wait his turn at second base. He spent time in center field as a freshman before inheriting the position from Michael Woods, who was selected in the first round by the Tigers in 2001.
¡°We had a tradition in practice, if you threw the ball away, you had to come and get it,¡± Cador said. ¡°I¡¯ll never forget, as a freshman, he was playing short, and he threw it away at first, so he had to come in. I was standing over there and he said, ¡®Coach, man, you¡¯ve got some good players. They¡¯re going to make me work harder.¡¯
¡°He wasn¡¯t looking for me to give him anything. He wanted to earn it.¡±
Now at his primary position, Weeks improved on his already dominant freshman year, delivering back-to-back standout seasons in which he posted a .495 and .500 average respectively. The Florida native also swatted a three-run homer in Southern¡¯s 5-3 win over Southern Mississippi University in the 2003 NCAA Tournament.
¡°We set the tone for the landscape of one HBCU, Southern University and also just small DI majors across the country,¡± Weeks said.
And if that wasn¡¯t enough to put Southern University on the map, Weeks also etched his name into the NCAA record books with dominant career numbers. His .465 average and .927 slugging percentage still stand as the highest recorded by a Division I player.
Along with posting the numbers that put him in rare air among college baseball legends, Weeks understandably racked up accolades aplenty in 2003. The eventual No. 2 pick in that year¡¯s Draft took home the Golden Spikes Award, the Dick Howser Trophy, College Baseball Player of the Year and the Rotary Smith Award, all representing the best player in college baseball from various outlets.
And, to no one's surprise, Weeks was also named the SWAC Most Outstanding Hitter and SWAC Player of the Year.
That 2003 season made history, but as Cador recalls, Weeks' standout moment came in 2002 during the NCAA Tournament's regional round.
¡°Rickie hits a line drive that hits in left-center near the center-field wall and hits the railing,¡± Cador said. ¡°It was such a missile and that was the one that made the scouts all come running. They said, ¡®He¡¯s legit, he¡¯s the best player here.¡¯¡±
After hearing his name called second by Milwaukee in June 2003, Weeks went on to slash .358/.500/.552 in 21 Minor League games before appearing in The Show just three months later at age 20.
Weeks spent his first full season in the Majors in 2005, and stayed there for 14 years, 10 as the second baseman for the Brewers. He was named an All-Star and competed in the Home Run Derby in 2011. And in 2022, Weeks was inducted into the National College Baseball Hall of Fame alongside Cador.
¡°They¡¯re always talking about in professional sports that it¡¯s hard to make the big leagues, but at the same time, it¡¯s hard to stay,¡± Weeks said. ¡°And I think the reason why I stayed is because of my time at Southern University.¡±