Patient Miller ready to work with T-Wolves in 25th year on sidelines

CATTARAUGUS — Entering his 25th season as a head coach, Tim Miller has a little more perspective and, in his words, “patience,” than he did to start his career.

Miller got his start coaching the Cattaraugus Big Red, then saw the football program through the merger into Cattaraugus-Little Valley and stuck with the sport long enough to become the Big 30’s longest tenured coach last season. The last few seasons haven’t treated the Timberwolves well, however, winning just five games over the last three years.

But approaching a quarter-century leading football teams, Miller doesn’t judge those seasons solely on win-loss records.

“I think to have the kids take out of the last game the same positive feeling they have going into the first game,” Miller said of what makes a successful season, “despite what may be not a great season, but to have a positive attitude about having been a part of this program, and been a part of something they can be proud of. You don’t have to win every game to be proud of what you do. If you work hard every day, and you improve at what you do, you might see CSP (state champion Clymer/Sherman/Panama) early in the season and lose by 40 and you might face them later and lose by 21.

“You’ve gotten better and that’s huge. Because if they continue on that path, you take out of it ‘I can always get better.’ If we can bring kids out of the end of the season feeling that way, we’ve done our jobs.”

Last season, C-LV went 1-8 (1-7 regular season), picking up its lone win in non-league play against Roy-Hart. CSP bested the Timberwolves three times, while Maple Grove and Salamanca swept two regular season meetings each against C-LV, the latter in a pair of one-score games (26-20 and 14-6).

Miller’s patience could be tested again this season, as the Timberwolves weather some lower numbers — 40 combined players for varsity and JV — though he has a few seniors already showing leadership. If C-LV has a strength, through, if should be up front, with four linemen returning with starting experience.

“We’re usually mid-to-upper 40s,” Miller said. “So we’re struggling a little bit from personnel standpoint.

“Our line should be pretty solid. We had so much shuffling around last year between injuries and just changes in personnel that the kids we bring back on the line have a solid amount of experience. We’re going to kind of build around that. We’re green almost everywhere else. So we’ve really got to mature and come together quick from a skill-position standpoint.”

Nick Burroughs (running back/linebacker) and Jason Young (two-way lineman) should lead C-LV’s skill groups and lines, respectively.

“We’re getting really solid effort out of these kids,” Miller said. “They’re working hard, they seem to have some good chemistry — we don’t seem to see a lot of guys butting heads, they seem real together — and that’s always a big plus.”

Miller said the Timberwolves had strong summer weight room participation, but getting the team together for on-field workouts before practice started on Monday proved to be difficult.

“We have a lot of kids that are involved in farming, so the fair season takes kids away,” he said. “Wou have the Catt County Fair and the Erie County Fair in July and August, so a lot of our kids are involved with that. They take animals and they show ’em, so they’re out of pocket for that time. The kids that did show up worked hard.

“We had weight room two times a day — two availabilities a day — so we would get mixed attendance there but most of the guys who couldn’t make it in the morning, would show up in the evening, so we did make some gains strength-wise over the summer in terms of lifting, but we didn’t get a lot of on the field stuff done that we would have liked to.”

Even though the state champion CSP graduated most of its starters, Miller doesn’t expect the Class D league to get any easier, especially with Franklinville/Ellicottville and Randolph dropping back down.

“CSP, the run they had last year was just unbelievable and I don’t think their JV team had a point spread lower than 20 points in their juggernaut through the JV season,” Miller said. “So they’re going to be solid again. Franklinville/Ellicottville, always a good program. Randolph, you know what to expect there, Randolph’s always going to be a good, solid football program.

“But we had a couple of our better performances against CSP despite what the final scores would look like. Our kids turned out and played hard. So to me that’s critical. If your kids can show up and compete, you’re ahead of the game, and that’s one of the things that we preach constantly, ‘Look, you might be outsized, you might be facing a team that’s faster, but you have to show up and compete. You can’t just go in a shell.’ If our kids will do that, good things happen.”

Of all the ways Miller has changed over 25 years, including adapting to a changing and more spread out game — “It used to be you could count on probably 75 of your season lining up against a power football team and it was just nose-to-nose, hammering football,” he said — he values the patience he’s learned.

“I used to sometimes be my own worst enemy,” Miller said. “A kid would make a mistake and not just me, but I set the tone for my whole staff, we would come down pretty hard on kids for mistakes and these are teenage kids, they’re going to make mistakes. So I’ve become more patient with that.

“I’ve become more patient with the referees, although they might disagree. I think they all probably find me more palatable than they did 25 years ago. I guess I just have more of a recognition for the human side of the sport. Everybody here is human, everybody makes mistakes and I feel like I’m in a better position to deal with those mistakes, how to handle them without losing my cool.”

THE RETURNING starters:

Nick Burroughs, sr., 5-10, 175, running back/linebacker

Jason Young, sr., 6-2, 250, line both ways

Brodie Hill, jr., 5-11, 240, line both ways

Mickey Guerin, sr., 6-2, 240, line both ways

Dylan Barber, sr., 5-11, 270, line both ways

Hunter Furl, sr., 6-0, 165, running back/linebacker

ALSO LETTERING were:

Sully Higgins, sr., 5-11, 155, wide receiver/defensive back

Nick Williams, sr., 6-1, 225, line both ways

Caiden Kittle, sr., 5-11, 165, end both ways

Joe Quigley, jr., 5-7, 155, running back/linebacker