ORONO, Maine — University of Maine head softball coach Lynn Coutts has been promoted to a senior associate director of athletics, UMaine Director of Athletics Karlton Creech announced Friday.
Coutts’ husband, Mike Coutts, has been named UMaine’s head softball coach after working as an assistant since 2012 and serving as associate head coach since the 2014-15 season.
Lynn Coutts was hired in fall 2011 as the head softball coach and guided the team for four seasons, compiling an overall record of 65-110-1, with a 30-39-1 mark in America East. She recorded her best record last season, 22-22 overall and 10-7 in AE.
In her new role, she will oversee compliance, Title IX, financial aid, student-athlete conduct, sports medicine, sports performance and equipment. She will serve as the liaison to academic support, the NCAA-designated Senior Woman Administrator and a sport program administrator.
Coutts said Creech approached her about the job and asked if she would be interested.
“I had never thought about it but I never really thought about being a head coach, either,” said the 50-year-old Coutts. “I love change. We have some great things coming up at the university and I want to be a part of it.
“When I look at my job, I don’t see it as being administrative. I’m still going to be coaching but I’ll be coaching different people,” said Coutts. “The athletic department is changing. When I was here [as a player], it was great. I want it to be great again.”
A member of the University of Maine Sports Hall of Fame, Coutts graduated from UMaine in 1987 after an All-American senior season as a dominant pitcher.
Coutts said she wouldn’t have taken the job if she wasn’t leaving it in the capable of hands of her husband.
“We have improved over the past three years because of Mike. I have the utmost respect and admiration for him as a coach and, obviously, as a person. The girls respond so well to him. He loves coaching. We’re very fortunate to have him,” she said.
Lynn Coutts will still be involved in the softball program as she will work with the pitchers.
She replaces Eileen Flaherty, who resigned to become the athletic director at Westfield High School in Massachusetts.
Mike Coutts, who is 56, is a former Black Bear baseball player and assistant baseball coach. He graduated from UMaine in 1982 and earned a master’s degree in education/administration from UMaine in 1989.
“Obviously, the university is very dear to Mike and to me. We owe a lot to the university and we want to do anything we can to help out,” Lynn Coutts said. “We have some great people here and when we work together, we can achieve some great things.”
She signed a one-year contract and her husband has a three-year deal.