By MATT DiFILIPPO

Staff Writer

Bob Leib has been coaching at UMaine-Farmington for 31 seasons. Come spring, he will be done, and Leib is talking about why.

"I'm getting so soft now, and that's why I gotta get out," Leib starts. "These sensitive seminars are making me soft, see. I'm just an old, compassionate, sensitive guy now.

"Put that in," Leib adds with a grin. "That'll get a few laughs. Quote of the year."

Compassionate? Soft? Sensitive? Bob Leib? Nah.

Leib has been a fixture in Farmington through several generations of athletes and administrators. He coached the men's soccer team from 1977 to 2001, and has coached the women's soccer team since 1996. In the spring, he has coached softball since 1994 and headed up the baseball team for 16 years before that.

Leib won his 400th soccer game with a 3-0 victory against Becker College on Sept. 23. He now has a career 410-156-49 soccer record at UMF, and in 50 seasons of coaching soccer and softball at the school, he has never had a losing record.

The Beavers are typically strong this fall. They're 13-4-1 this season, including 9-0-1 in the North Atlantic Conference, and will open the NAC tournament by hosting Johnson State at 1 p.m. Saturday.

Through it all, Leib has stayed true to himself and what he believes is his best style.

"This day and age, somebody just tries, and even if they aren't doing it right, they get credit," Leib said. "I wasn't brought up that way. I'm from the old school. They know when they receive it from me that they're doing what I want to do. I don't sugar-coat it."

But athletes who play for Leib end up realizing how much he has done to improve their games. If he yells at a player, it's because he sees potential to do better, and he wants his players to reach that potential.

"The things he says sometimes come out with a negative tone," said Amanda Byrne, a Winslow High School graduate who is on this year's women's team, "but if you listen to what he's saying, instead of just his tone, he makes you a better player."

Leib, who took his 1986 men's soccer team and his 2002 women's team to national NAIA tournaments, also has a keen sense of humor. One gets the feeling that behind his frequent devilish grin there is a man enjoying a lot of jokes at the world's expense.

"He mumbles a lot, and it's hard to tell what he says under his breath," said Terry Parlin, who has known Leib since he was coaching against him in the early 1980s. "And if you sit back and you hear him mumble under his breath, you begin to wonder what he's saying."

And when people do hear what Leib his saying, and they repeat it, they often do their best impression of that voice, which is strangely familiar.

"There is no way to describe Coach Leib," said Mary Berry, who played four years of softball at UMF. "I think the best way to describe him is, if you were to ever do a movie about his life, Jack Nicholson is the person you would have to cast as Coach Leib -- and he knows that."

Of course, Berry is having a little fun at her former coach's expense. But she insists there are some real similarities.

"The gamut of emotions. ... You've got moments where you look at him and laugh and moments where everything he says is the God's honest truth, and he says it in a way that you can't argue with it," Berry said. "Not to mention, he kind of looks like him."

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Leib, 62, grew up in Pennsylvania, about 30 miles from Hershey ("You see those Amish commercials? They're my neighbors," Leib said.). He was an assistant soccer and baseball coach at the Division I level at the University of Delaware from 1968 to 1977.

Then it was on to UMF, a Division III school, but one that was offering a job as head coach.

"People say, 'Why didn't you move up?' I started at D-I," Leib said. "I moved down to D-III. I would have had to wait to age 50 to get that (D-I) job."

Only once, in 1982, did Leib seriously think about leaving Maine and moving back to Pennsylvania. Leib's wife is from Philadelphia, but their children didn't want to move, so he stayed in Maine.

Leib is now moving out of Maine to follow his children. They live down south, and after Leib coaches softball this spring and stays on through November 2008 in other duties to get his retirement package, he will move closer to his children.

"I've got five grandchildren," Leib said. "I have to travel 600 to 1,000 to see my grandkids. That gets tough, the older you are. Instead of seeing them four times a year, I'd like to see them four times a month."

The idea of Leib as a retired former coach won't make sense to some people. This is the kind of guy who, during card games, calls his friends names we can't print. He lives on activity and competition.

"Somebody wanted to take me fishing," Leib said. "I said, 'If I could hit it with a board, I'd love it.' I'm a physical person, I guess you could say. I'm not a real thinker. Thinking gets me in trouble."

But there is a joke -- perpetuated by Leib himself -- that there are actually two Bob Leibs. There's the more relaxed Leib, who is only seen in summer and winter when there's no competition in sight. Then there's Coach Leib, the arm-waving, caustic taskmaster who all but forces his players into better performance.

"It takes a while to get to know me," Leib said. "The first year, they think I'm just tough on them and demand excellence. But I don't like mediocrity. I try to bring out the most potential.

"They get mad at me at times, but hey, I'm not big on fun and girly stuff until the work's done. I don't like it when girls fool around. We have fun, but once it's an hour and a half before game time, we take it serious, probably more serious than we should."

Leib will admit that this attitude can have negative effects.

"It's tough on the mental health sometimes," Leib said. "I take it more serious than you really need to, but it's been my way of life. I've just always taken competition seriously."

While Leib still will throw water bottles if the game is difficult enough, he says he is actually calmer than in his younger days as a head coach. Although he's had only one red card in his career, Leib would more than occasionally send water buckets and first aid kits in all directions.

"Nobody sat near me," Leib said. "They saw one water bucket go, they learned to move to the other end of the bench."

What mellowed Leib out -- to the extent that he has mellowed -- was coaching women's soccer. Without compromising success, Leib was able to take a more philosophical approach to his job.

"What they've done is make me realize it's just a game," Leib said. "What they can do -- what I never could do -- is once it's over, they get on with it. The men's (team), when I was young, if it was a tough loss, just weeks (it would) mentally drain me. I finally got wiser and smarter with that, but it took me a long time."

And as tough as Leib is, he is respected. This summer and fall, he saw 15 different former players at weddings.

"I think there's no question that he's a legend in soccer," said Julie Davis, the director of athletics at UMF. "His style is pretty classic old-school, but there's a lot more to it than that. He'd be the first to tell you that he doesn't change, but he's been able to adapt to different generations of athletes."

Leib was asked how he wanted to be remembered.

"That I was fair, and that my teams came to battle, prepared and competitive," Leib said. "That I was fair and disciplined, held to my values, believed in what I believed and hoped that they would believe in it, too. That's pretty much it, I think."

Matt DiFilippo -- 861-9243

mdifilippo@centralmaine.com