Todd Donovan was always the guy in what he calls “sixth gear.” He was the one who crashed into the outfield fence in Frisco, Texas, in 2007, so hard he was airlifted from the minor league stadium with a head injury that ended his season.

Donovan was always the catcher growing up, the cerebral student of the game. He was the ideal baserunner, stealing 65 bases in 2005 while a member of the Los Angeles Dodgers minor league system, a total which led all of professional baseball that season.

“I loved to compete,” said Donovan, a 1996 graduate of East Lyme High School and still an East Lyme resident. “I would put stuff away and use it to drive me. I always kind of felt like an underdog. I always played and felt like an underdog.

“I was always learning, always listening. I was always looking for that small competitive edge. Playing cards, playing Nintendo, if I caught you sleeping, I had ya.”

In essence, he was always scouting.

It was a perfect prelude to his current job.

Donovan, 37, was announced Jan. 13 as assistant director of player personnel for the Seattle Mariners.

His old profession, as a minor league baseball player for 11 seasons with seven different franchises — making it as far as Triple-A with the Dodgers and the Orioles — somehow morphed into this new responsibility: Getting the Mariners back to the playoffs for the first time since 2001.

Following scouting stints last year with the Tampa Bay Rays and for five years before that with the Arizona Diamondbacks, Donovan will be active in all facets (pro, amateur and international) of the Mariners' scouting operation. New Seattle general manager Jerry Dipoto was once the Diamondbacks' scouting director, connecting him with Donovan.

Since taking over, Donovan has spent time in Seattle, Los Angeles, Dallas, Philadelphia, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, mainly meeting with other scouts to assure there is uniformity throughout the Mariners' system.

Later this month, he will attend spring training sessions during the week in Peoria, Ariz., he said, while bouncing out on weekends to attend marquee college matchups. Following spring training, he will go heavy on his attendance of amateur games, with high school games on Thursdays, college games on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, leading up to the Major League Draft in June.

On Friday, however, Donovan was home with his family in East Lyme, shoveling snow and getting ready to attend a birthday party for 16-year-old sister Taya.

Donovan's ties to the region include his wife Erin — a sixth-grade teacher in Montville — and sons Brady (3) and Finn (8 months); dad and step-mother, Bill and Mari-Louise Donovan; mom and step-father Cherylann and Raul Valdez; brothers Derek Wainwright (Montville boys' basketball coach), Dan Donovan, and brother and sister Tyler and Taya Valdez.

Then there's a list of people Donovan reels off with lightning precision, the caregivers of Donovan's education in East Lyme whom he credits with always fueling his aspirations of working with young people.

He lists baseball, football and track coaches and mentors — Pete and Andy Walker, Tim Yuhas, Chris Mountain, Paul Christensen, Rick “Sarge” Pasqualini, Lou Ernst, Mike Devanney, Randy Taylor, Dave Sdao and Carl Reichard — as people he can't thank enough.

“They're obviously brilliant sports people and very loyal to the town, but better human beings,” Donovan said Friday. “Ultimately, at the end of the day, they gave me a passion of wanting to teach, gearing me toward becoming an educator.

“As much as I wanted to be a player, I wanted to be an educator of sport. It's because of how I was treated as a player.”

He calls the highlight of his scouting career thus far the ability to give players in the northeast the ability to fulfill the dream of becoming professional baseball players.

“People from this part of the country, we're all cut from the same thread,” Donovan said. “We're passionate. We're educated. … I enjoy going around and telling people where I'm from. I didn't get to do what Johnny did (East Lyme's John McDonald, who forged a 16-year major league career as an infielder), but he's given me the opportunity to brag about where I'm from.”

Donovan, a sleek, 6-foot, 175-pound outfielder who was an eighth-round draft pick out of Siena in 1999 and once a member of the San Diego Padres' 40-man roster, retired from his playing career in 2009 following 346 stolen bases, 823 hits, 551 runs scored and 31 home runs.

There came a time, though, he said, perhaps coinciding with his hospital stay in Texas, during which he reevaluated what he thought was the ultimate desire of playing in the major leagues, even for one day. Donovan realized he wanted more than that.

“One of the things I would have changed was I was always taught to play every day like it was your last and I probably took that too literally,” Donovan said.

“(Scouting is) one of those things that I actually didn't force. In today's game you need communication, someone to tell you, 'Hey, buddy, you need to pump the brakes a little bit. I'm living proof.' It's a marathon, not a sprint.”

v.fulkerson@theday.com

Twitter: @vickieattheday