A Staten Island high school basketball coach has been arrested for allegedly spanking two 15-year-old boys after they missed shots during practice, police officials said yesterday.

Drew Sanders, 49, was charged at Staten Island criminal court yesterday with assault, 23 counts of forcible touching, 23 counts of sexual abuse, and two counts of endangering the welfare of a child. Bail was set at $15,000.

According to the criminal complaint, Mr. Sanders spanked one boy’s bare buttocks with his hand on 22 occasions at the Jewish Community Center on Arthur Kill Road in the Greenridge section of Staten Island. Another boy was allegedly spanked on two occasions in the summer of 2004 at Susan E. Wagner High School on Manor Road.

The most recent incident allegedly occurred July 4, when Mr. Sanders took a boy into a back room, pulled down his pants and shorts, bent him over his lap, and spanked him with a wooden Ping-Pong paddle, prosecutors said. The use of a paddle added a misdemeanor for criminal possession of a weapon in the fourth degree to the other charges.

Mr. Sanders, who is said to be 6 feet 5 inches tall and to weigh about 250 pounds, is assistant executive director of the Jewish Community Center as well as an assistant basketball coach at Tottenville High School, prosecutors said.

The center’s director of marketing, Ruth Lasser, said: “We’re aware of the charges against Drew Sanders. We’re cooperating with the police. We are concerned for the youth involved in the allegations and we are concerned for Drew and his family.”

Ms. Lasser said Mr. Sanders, a father of three children, is a prominent member of the community who has worked at the center for 18 years.

The two alleged victims played basketball together and had talked about the spanking privately before the police became involved, prosecutors said. After Monday’s incident with the paddle, the boy who allegedly was spanked became upset, prosecutors said. When questioned by his parents, he described what had happened, and they called the police soon afterwards, according to the authorities. During the initial police investigation it was learned that the boy knew another boy who had a similar experience with Mr. Sanders, prosecutors said. The two boys liked Mr. Sanders and hadn’t wanted him to get in trouble, prosecutors said.

According to a spokeswoman for the city Department of Education, Kelly Devers, both Tottenville and Susan E. Wagner high schools have been ordered not to allow Mr. Sanders on their premises. Mr. Sanders has been suspended by both the community center and the Department of Education, representatives said.

If convicted on the top charge in the criminal complaint, attempted assault in the second degree, he would face four years in prison, prosecutors said.

Calls to Mr. Sanders’s defense attorney, Mark Fonte, were not returned yesterday. His next court appearance is scheduled for Monday, prosecutors said.