Lawrence High boys basketball coach Mike Lewis works with sophomores during practice on Monday at LHS. Monday was the first day of practices for winter sports.

Of the eight high school sports that tipped off their winter seasons at Lawrence High and Free State High on Monday — on a drab, dreary, snow-spotted day, no less — six did so with familiar faces guiding the ship.

The two that didn’t flipped on the lights in the gyms at Lawrence High, as LHS boys basketball coach Mike Lewis and Lions girls basketball coach Nick Wood both ran their first official practices in charge of their new programs.

“It feels great,” said Lewis, midway through his second session Monday. “I was at school all day kind of watching the clock tick down. As a coach, there’s no better feeling than walking into the gym when you’re excited to see the guys and they’re excited to see you.”

Thanks to a Kansas State High School Activities Association rule change that went into effect this year which allowed basketball coaches more contact with their athletes during the summer, both Lewis and Wood hit the floor Monday with a good understanding of who they had in their gyms.

Still, as if he stole the idea straight out of the movie “Hoosiers,” Lewis had his troops wear plain white T-shirts with their last names written in marker across the front.

“It helps,” he said.

For Wood, a 1996 LHS graduate, Monday’s first day felt more like the 50th, even if he was a little nostalgic about his first official duties as an LHS head coach.

“With the rule change that came into play, I really felt that the transition had already taken place,” he said. “They’re already used to my style and what I expect.”

By all accounts, that includes hard work at all times mixed in with a little fun and a lot of conditioning.

“At one point or another, all of these girls picked up a basketball at some time in their lives because they had fun doing it,” Wood said. “And that’s the way we want them to feel here. We want them to have fun playing the game, but at the same time we want them to do things the right way. We’re sort of using these first couple of days to set the tone so that they know our identity.”

While the balls were bouncing on the hardwood, boys swimmers were making waves in the LHS pool and wrestlers were pounding the mats upstairs in anticipation of another season.

Across town, at Free State High, the same four winter sports — boys basketball, girls basketball, boys swimming and wrestling — also got things going, and many of the coaches jumped into the first day with great hopes for the upcoming season.

“Everybody in the state starts 0-0,” Free State boys basketball coach Chuck Law said. “It’s a fresh start to the season, and we’re excited about the prospects for this year.”

Although the Free State boys lost a few seniors to graduation from last year’s team, Law returns the bulk of that squad, all of them with another valuable year of experience under their belts.

Speaking of experience, there might not be a team in the city that has more than Bryan Duncan’s Free State girls basketball team. In Chantay Caron, Ashli Hill and Wren Wiebe, Duncan welcomes back three players who have started since their sophomore seasons. But it wasn’t just the top-notch returners that had Duncan smiling on Day 1.

“There was some snow flying around out there today, it feels a little cold and basketball season is here,” Duncan said. “I think there was a little buzz throughout the school today because the start of winter sports has arrived.”

All eight programs will continue practicing throughout the week in anticipation of the first days of competition, which will arrive at the beginning of December. Basketball programs at Seabury Academy and Veritas Christian will do the same and, in a few weeks, the fifth winter sport — boys and girls bowling at LHS and Free State — also will get things rolling.

“The coolest thing now is that it’s actually practice,” Wood said. “There’s nothing like being in the gym every day for two hours with your team.”