At times, being a coach with a bunch of younger players on the roster can be a trying experience.

The situation becomes even more difficult when you are forced to use inexperienced players in league games and they have to go up against veterans who sport two or three season letter stripes on their varsity jackets.

No doubt about it, trying to win varsity games with a young team is a difficult proposition and usually results in a serious case of acid stomach, a sometimes grumpy attitude off the field resulting in occasional confrontations with the family about trivial things that have nothing to do with sports and the onset of premature gray hair.

Speaking from experience, “I been there and done that,” and it isn’t a whole lot of fun.

Growing up I got the double whammy — my father was a high school football and baseball coach and I played at the same school. We weren’t very good during my high school career so I had the opportunity to “enjoy” losing games from both a player’s and a coach’s perspective.

As a result I told myself, “No never.” Well, hardly no never.

What happened when the first coaching opportunity was thrust my way? The kid jumped at it.

What can you do, other than maybe have Billy Crystal make another movie without Robert De Nero and title it “Analyze the Dummy.”

My first wife made a half-hearted attempt at trying to understand how I could possibly get so wrapped up with the kids and sports every year, and the second wife was clueless.

The major focal point for coaches that folks outside the job need to understand, the bottom line, is that it’s all about the kids. Helping young men and young women grow and mature. Teaching them to accept responsibility for their actions, have respect for their teammates and opponents, and learn how never to accept defeat, so you can become winners both on and off the field.

A coach has to be a teacher and that in itself is a big sticking point. A coach can instruct, but a coach can’t “do.” The doing part is the responsibility of the players and that’s why a team has to practice — a lot! Get those “reps” in and drill, drill, drill until you can do it right. Do your job and play your position without thinking because out on the field or the court, you don’t have time to think. The moment a player pauses to think while the game is in progress they are beaten, especially in football. We used to call it “out-thinking ourselves.”

Inexperienced teams result in coaches having to make adjustments. I knew of a football team one year that had so many young players on the roster the coaching staff put together an offensive game plan that had just five running plays. The thing was, they ran the offense out of six different formations. But the backs stepped the same way and the line blocked the same way every time. Simple, easy to remember.

Coach Jay Turner and his crew face the problem of having to use a number of young players this season and I’m starting to hear grumbling from some of the fans which bothers me. Stuff like poor selection of plays, why did they do that, and stuff like that wouldn’t have happened last year.

Why didn’t stuff like that happen last year? Because about 95 percent of the Wildcat starting players were seniors or had at least one year of varsity experience behind them.

Experience certainly isn’t the situation with the Wildcats this season so the team has to learn from their mistakes and don’t let them happen in the next game, always play hard, and never get discouraged.

The coaching staff has to adopt a philosophy that we may be out-personneled from time to time but we’ll never be out-coached.

This mind-set kept me and some of the other guys I coached with going, and prevented us from becoming completely insane.

And fans need to cease criticizing, keep coming to the games and keep supporting the team.

The purple and gold is our home-town team and win or lose, it’s all about our kids.