Winter is upon us and that means a new high school sports season is beginning. It also means the various youth programs for sports like basketball and hockey are in full swing.

Coaches at all levels will begin scrambling to put together practice regimens and drills to help their respective teams maximize their potential.

Coaching is an intriguing challenge.

You have different personalities and different levels of ability. There are players with terrific skills who underachieve because they’re lazy.

Other players have limited ability but overachieve because they have a tremendous work ethic. There are also players with exceptional skills who work extremely hard while other players have limited ability and are lazy.

Finally, there are players who are aggressive, somewhat aggressive and passive.

So what can you do as a coach to get the most out of your players and create a positive environment for skill development?

. Find ways to make practices fun and keep your players busy. You’re much better off having shorter practices that require the players to be active throughout most of the allotted time than having long practices with players standing around for extended periods.

Finish practices with various skill competitions or scrimmages that the players enjoy and look forward to. You can have small-sided games or shooting competitions involving breaking your team up into groups (i.e. seniors and freshmen vs. sophomores and juniors ).

Conclude a busy and productive week or month with a reward from time to time (i.e. ice cream). Take the players out for a night of bowling or have them over to dinner or to your house for a movie.

This helps develop camaraderie and also shows you care about them as people not just players.

. Accentuate the positive. Build your players’ confidence. And that should include the last player on your roster as well as the top player.

However, don’t sugarcoat and don’t be afraid to reprimand when it is warranted.

Kids nowadays are much more worldly than we were and they know when you’re going overboard to turn a negative into a positive. You risk losing their respect. They need to know things like a poor work ethic is unacceptable.

If you work hard and lose to a team that is better or is more opportunistic on that particular day, that’s OK.

. Establish team rules and stick by them. Players need to be held accountable for their actions. Don’t play favorites. Have a meeting with the parents to go over the team rules. Don’t just send home a piece of paper outlining the rules. Book bags have a funny way of swallowing up papers.

. Applaud positive aggression. There is room on every team for an aggressive heart-and-soul type of player. They raise the work ethic of everybody.

. Devise drills to strengthen a weakness. For example, force your basketball players to dribble only with their weak hand during a scrimmage. Or have your hockey team pass or shoot only on the backhand.

. Last but not least, encourage sportsmanship. Respect your opponent and your sport. Fans always remember classy teams and gestures of sportsmanship. It reflects well on the team, the coach, the school and the community.

Larry Mahoney can be reached at 990-8231, 1-800-310-8600 or at lmahoney@bangordailynews.net.