C.J. Thieleke joined the Parkside baseball coaching staff in the fall of 2022.
Thieleke comes to Parkside after spending the past two seasons as an assistant coach at Milwaukee Area Technical College. He also spent the summer of 2022 managing the Maunesha River Rats of the Dairyland Collegiate Baseball League.
Thieleke has over 24 years of experience as an assistant coach at the collegiate level. His stops include Mt. Mercy College (1998-00), Iowa (2001-03), Madison College (2005-10), Milwaukee Area Technical College (2020-22), and Parkside. Thieleke also has extensive experience coaching summer collegiate baseball, spending five years (2005-10) as the manager of the Madison Mallards of the highly prestigious Northwoods Baseball League. Under his direction, the Mallards never had a losing season, and his teams made the league championship in 2005 and 2008.
Thieleke also has experience coaching at the professional level. He was the hitting coach for the Schaumburg Boomers of the Frontier League from 2012-14. There, he helped to coach the Boomers to league championships in 2013 and 2014. He was named the Frontier League Coach of the Year in 2014. He also coached for the Gary South Shore Rail Cats in 2011.
Thieleke played collegiately at the University of Iowa (1994-96), where he enjoyed a successful playing career. Thieleke was the 1994 Big Ten Freshman of the Year and an All-Big Ten player in 1995 and 1996. Thieleke was a 32nd-round draft pick of the Minnesota Twins in 1996. He then sported a .294 batting average in his minor league career.
Thieleke graduated from the University of Iowa in 1998 with a sports management and communications degree.
