The University of Kansas is trying to figure out whether or not it wants to fire Mark Mangino, its head football coach. The main complaint against Mangino is that he's an asshole who yells too much and occasionally gets physical as well. Incidentally, the team has lost six games in a row heading into next week's rivalry game with Missouri.

In almost every case, once a school (or team) begins a public deliberation on the future of its coach, the coach is toast. But I don't care about that. I went to Missouri, after all.

What this has done is make me wonder about my coaching. Many of the stories about Mangino's situation have described a win-at-all-costs attitude that has filtered down even into youth leagues. And while I'm not an official coach, I did serve as substitute coach for two practices and two games this season for my son Max's second-grade soccer team.

And I can point to one outburst (not at kids) that I'm not proud of. After a dreadful loss midway through the season, I talked to the assistant coach (a good friend of mine) a couple of days later. We often did this while hanging out, and this occasion was no different.

He mentioned that the team didn't look very good. No one played well, and even our better players looked lost. I agreed. He asked me if I knew why. I said coaching. I said we (even though I wasn't a coach) weren't teaching the kids anything. Our practice before that game was a scrimmage. The kids just ran pell-mell all over the field. They did that in the game as well, and they got crushed.

That aside on a Saturday night wasn't the outburst, though. At the practice field, well out of range of the kids, I was a bit more specific in my criticism. I said the kids should practice skills. Passing. Dribbling. Run real drills. My friend protested that we had been running drills. I just waved him off. I was really ticked off, and I didn't want to say anything else.

Luckily, my wife had drawn up a few drills for me to present to the coaches, and the coaches asked petulant ol' me what they should do. I gave them Barb's drills. The team ran them. In the next game, Max's team beat the best team in the league. Max scored the game-winning goal (as he did in three of his teams four wins).

From that point on, the team ran those drills (and a couple others) in practice, and they won all but their last game. But the winning doesn't matter much to me.

What I like was what happened when the kids fell behind (or were tied) in every game they won. They didn't get mad or give up, as they had earlier in the season. Rather, they simply kept playing because they were having fun.

Object lesson for any coach: Knowing how to play the game makes playing the game more fun.

I'm passionate about kids learning the game. I was hardly quiet or demure in my sub coaching appearances. I yell a lot. I yell encouragement. The harshest thing I've yelled at a kid is the question "What's your position?" I've found that this is a good teaching device. It reminds the player of his or her position (kids always know the answer, so no worries about that) and it makes the player think about where he or she should be on the field and what that means. Yes, the question is a bit critical. Criticism (as the dictionary defines it) is necessary for learning. If you don't actually grade spelling tests, you'd have college students writing sentences like "I dont lyke to loose gayms." No thanks.

I didn't berate players for making mistakes. That's foolish and counterproductive. Rather, I spent most of every game calling out various players for the good plays they were making. When kids were subbed off the field, I tried to congratulate each one on a specific (good) play made in the previous quarter. If you combine constructive criticism with encouragement, kids learn and they continue to love playing.

In the last game of the year, Max played in goal in the fourth quarter. His coach put him there for a reason. The team was unfocused and tired. And Max is the best goalkeeper on the team. He might be the best in the league, but in any case he's pretty good. And he gave up the goal that beat his team.

He gave up the goal because his coach told him to stop roaming at the edge of the penalty box and scooping up every ball that approached. The coach wanted the defenders to learn how to clear the ball--he was willing to give up goals in order to let kids learn. That's good coaching.

Max was disconsolate for a moment after giving up the goal, but after giving up the goal he made three spectacular saves. On the last one, he threw his entire body sideways at the attacker. He rolled over the ball as the opposing player flew over him. Both kids lay crumpled on the ground for a second, and then both got up laughing. Turns out the attacker was a friend of Max's from soccer camp (he has countless friends we don't know), and they were just having a good time playing soccer.

I'm passionate about kids learning the game, but I don't care about them winning. They lost that last game, but they played hard. And they enjoyed themselves. And they made their parents (and themselves) proud.

They can wait a couple years before they have to play for a Coach Asshole. If they're lucky, they can wait quite a while.

Jon Worley now has a lifetime record of 1-2 as a substitute soccer coach.