The following questions were answered by Chelmsford High School boys basketball coach Charlie Micol, who has been with the Lions for about 20 years. Chelmsford missed the postseason this year and finished with a record of 8-14, while putting together a 5-10 mark in the Merrimack Valley league play.

What keeps you coming back coaching each year?

I love working with the kids. That’s a part of it. Basketball for me was a big part of my life. I grew up in town and want to give back to the community. Basketball helped me through a lot of things, and I want to help kids since sports are a good thing to help with life lessons and be a part of a team.

How would you rate the state of the program after a down season?

I think we had a pretty good amount of talent with the younger kids. They need to realize how competitive it’s going to be next year. I think they saw that. Our JV team was pretty good. Our practice and inner squad scrimmages, it wasn’t like you’re walking all over the JV kids. They saw that. They know it’s going to be very competitive to get playing time. So I think there’s a lot of kids who realized they have to put a lot of time and effort in to make sure they’re part of the team.

What needs to be done to return the program to a high level of play?

I think it’s more important to be a little more involved in the youth program. That’s where we’ve put a lot of effort in, and we’re seeing the results with more kids that are interested and excited about playing basketball as opposed to sometimes it was just two or three kids that really played a lot. We have many more travel teams playing now. We want to come freshman year have 20-25 kids fighting for 12-14 spots at that level. That’s really the angle we’ve taken, and hopefully it’ll pay off going forward.

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