PORTLAND – Mike Coutts, by most definitions, would be considered a businessman, but there’s still a great deal of coach left in him.

Coutts operates the Frozen Ropes franchise in Portland. Most of his time is spent running the business as opposed to participating regularly as a coach.

“Our ultimate goal is to make baseball in the state of Maine better,” said Coutts. “Part of that comes from the fact that I went through the Auburn Suburban Little League system. I played at EL. I played for New Auburn Legion. I played at UMaine. I’m a Maine kid, and I had great experiences growing up baseball-wise. I keep thinking it’d be so great to have other kids experience what I experienced – playing in the College World Series.”

When he joined the company in 1997, the intention was to teach and instruct, but the job has led him away from that role.

Still the drive to teach, train and build better baseball players is at the heart of what he does. His motivation and passion for baseball is no different than when he was an assistant to John Winkin at Maine. His goal now is to help develop that love of the game.

“That’s the whole thing, it’s the passion behind it,” says Coutts. “I’ve had some great experiences, and we can help kids have those great kinds of experiences. Kids have more that they can do. You watch kids playing sometimes, and they don’t have that passion or someone’s knocked out that passion or that positive feeling.”

He joined Frozen Ropes in Franklin, Mass., in the late 1990s after he was passed over for the head baseball job at Maine.

Coutts and former major league player Mike Bordick always wanted to establish a training facility in the Portland area. In November of 2001, an opportunity arose to purchase Four Seasons Baseball in South Portland.

“So we ended up buying the existing business and changing the name to Frozen Ropes,” said Coutts.

After a year at the original location, the operation moved to Warren Avenue in Portland last January. Coutts currently rents from the Portland Sports Center but has plans to add onto his offices and build a training facility and retail store.

He often gets asked whether he’d like to coach again. Coutts does coach a Frozen Ropes travel team for a few weeks a year, but that’s the extent of his game action.

“I like what I’m doing right now,” said Coutts. “I love the fact that I’m involved in Frozen Ropes. I don’t teach as much as I’d like. If somebody said you could go back to coaching college, and I could still keep Frozen Ropes, I’d go back in a heartbeat. I just loved coaching at that level. I had a great experience at Maine with Wink.”

He may be more businessman than coach at times, but he is still teaching. His goal is to create more opportunities at Frozen Ropes for coaches to learn and develop. He’s trying to interest Little League and Senior League coaches with clinics and seminars, but has found some resistance from coaches who believe they don’t need the help.

“We are professionals,” said Coutts. “It is our job. We go away to learn things. We have things presented to us to learn more. We want to be able to show what we’ve been able to learn. Either we have a better way or at least a way to try to do things.”

That’s the biggest obstacle Coutts has discovered. People think they don’t need to learn more or assume that Frozen Ropes is just a run-of-the-mill practice facility. Trying to establish credibility and reputation takes time.

“We have a training curriculum and a teaching curriculum,” said Coutts. “We spend time with vision training, mental training and how to deal with kids. I didn’t just get into the business because I coached at UMaine, and I know a little bit about baseball. It goes far beyond that. I don’t think people realize what makes us who we are. That we have all this curriculum. We spend time with the Red Sox and the Mets and college programs and try to put together a good curriculum and try to make kids better.”

Coutts has three full-time staff people Dave Fizzina, Nick Caiazzo and Casie Runksmeir. Runksmeir was hired in May to help develop their softball program. There are also 25 part-time coaches involved in various clinics.

Besides their collection of clinics and leagues, Coutts has also been open to trying different things to help and promote the game. They sponsored an underclassmen baseball tournament at Hadlock Field where 24 college coaches were on hand. They host a clinic with the Sea Dogs this week and have a week-long clinic at South Lewiston Little League beginning Aug. 2. He put on a pitching clinic for Poland baseball. The organization started a summer baseball league for Little League players who didn’t get picked for all-star teams, giving them 16 games and a tournament during July. It also hosts a fall baseball league on Sundays.

He’s operating a business but always keeps in mind that it is the development of kids that is the core to success.

“It’s important for me when people come in that their kid get taught the right way and it was a good experience, and it was everything we told them,” he said. “We are a business, but you want them walking out at the end saying that it was fun, that it was a good experience and that they want to come back.”

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