IT'S NOT EASY BEING PERFECT.

Byline: KEVIN MODESTI

A few e-mailers advise that, despite my honest effort, I have not been hard enough on UCLA football coach Bob Toledo, whose team has lost four games in a row since its 6-0 start this season.

Maybe I should explain that I sympathize with Toledo. I identify with the guy, understand what he goes through. We have something in common, a curse that afflicts a tiny fraction of the population.

Toledo never makes a mistake. I, too, never make a mistake (as if that needed to be stated).

Now, the rest of you might think it would be a blessing to never make a mistake, to never act on an incorrect decision, to never have to take responsibility for the calamities that occur on one's watch. In fact, it is a terrible burden.

You think it's hard to protect a 6-0 record? Or a 20-game winning streak like the Bruins' a few years ago? To play not to lose instead of to win? Then imagine going through your coaching career knowing that if you ever slip up, it will be the first time.

Toledo faces the pressure of trying to never make the mistake of passing up a field goal on fourth-and-20 against, let's say, Stanford; to never get too conservative in his play-calling on a last-minute drive against, say, Oregon; to never make the wrong choice on whether to bench a quarterback for the USC game (to pluck a hypothetical out of thin air) for violating the player-coach bond of trust; to never let his offense sink to eighth in the Pacific-10 rankings, and to never fail to say or do what's needed to lift a disappointed team's spirits.

I can relate to how difficult that is, because I live with the fear that one day I will misspell a word, misinterpret a statistic or make a bad prediction.

The second problem faced by those who are never wrong is that inevitably we must waste time explaining ourselves to people with inferior judgment skills who insist on questioning us.

Thus, Toledo must come to a press conference, as he did recently, armed with a down-by-down log of the final drive against the Ducks, in order to show knucklehead reporters the game was lost because players failed ``to make plays at critical times.''

Watching Toledo, I thought of the times I've had to patiently explain to the copy desk that 1,400 words is not too much to write about the featured appaloosa race at the Pomona fairgrounds.

The third problem for mistake-proof people such as us is that we're never able to charm a crowd with a self-deprecating quip, or earn character points by pointing out our own flaws, or announce that we ``accept personal responsibility'' - all the tricks of clever public figures seeking to appeal to common folk.

Pete Carroll was asked recently what he learned in his first season as USC's coach. ``I learned never to fake a punt against Notre Dame,'' Carroll said with a sheepish grin, and everybody in the room laughed with the nice man.

Dirk Koetter, whose Arizona State team plays the Bruins at the Rose Bowl on Saturday in the battle of four-game losing streaks, was asked what he'll change for next season. ``I think there's a number of things we have to do better, and one of those is coaching,'' Koetter said, and everybody listening by speaker phone at UCLA thought, ``What a stand-up guy!''

The well-timed mea culpa isn't available, though, to the inculpable.

Monday, I asked Toledo: ``In the last week, as you've reflected on how the season's gone, what are you kicking yourself for? What are you second- guessing yourself for?''

Toledo answered: ``Whew! Kicking? Second-guessing? Obviously, the thing with DeShaun Foster had a big effect on us because he's such a great player and such a friend of all the players ...''

And off he went with an answer that covered Foster's NCAA suspension, Paus' drunk-driving revelation and the Bruins' heartbreak after that first defeat (``I think the BCS is at fault,'' the coach said) - and mentioned nothing that Toledo himself might have done better.

The Bruins' epic collapse is all the fault of sloppy execution and the irresponsibility of these kids today, don't you know.

The way Toledo talks, he's giving some fans the impression he ``just makes excuses'' (as a UCLA alum e-mailed) and ``find(s) scapegoats when the blame is solely on his shoulders'' (as another UCLA fan e-mailed).

Some will never understand what we go through, people like Toledo and me.

Toledo is a likeable fellow with a bit of a sense of humor and enough of a way with words to overcome this handicap. Having no responsibility to bear, no bad choices to defend, and no mistakes to confess, maybe he needs to make some up.