Here are some anecdotes about Coach Leahy from the book Out of Bounds.

On the same day that Elmer Layden resigned at Notre Dame, Frank Leahy was sitting in an office six hundred miles away and putting his name on a contract that made him the coach of the Boston College Eagles for the next five years. Leahy had insisted on an alma mater clause. He was going to need it. Within two weeks he was in South Bend, inking yet another pact, this one naming him the head football coach and athletic director of the University of Notre Dame.

For Francis William Leahy, it was a dream come true.

He was as colorful a character as ever stalked the sidelines. Hailing from the harsh frontier town of Winner, South Dakota, he served on the lines of Rockne's last and finest teams until a knee injury ended his playing days. His senior year found him constantly at Rockne's side, an unofficial student coach learning from the master. It was as if Rockne had reached out and picked his successor -a theme the newspapers drove heavily home when Leahy arrived to lead the Irish.

Handsome in a sad-eyed sort of way, Leahy talked like the hero of a nineteenth century romance, his language stilted and dignified. He called his players "lads;" football helmets were "bonnets;" Everyone was addressed by his full Christian name: not John or Johnny, but Jonathan Lujack.

An almost frightening intensity burned behind Leahy's blue eyes. Football was his life. After the closing game of one season, he hurried to his office and spent the entire evening studying game films. "Others are plotting," he told astonished associates. "So must we."

Winning obsessed him. A tie was a loss; a defeat a black mark against, as Leahy would say, Our Lady's name. He wanted nothing less than the best athletes, the best coaching, a perfect season, and a national championship every year .

His accomplishments displeased only the perfectionist himself. In eleven campaigns with the Irish, Leahy coached six undefeated teams, two with perfect records, and won four national titles. His statistics reveal a won-lost percentage just short of Rockne's: 87-11-9, an 88% victory bulge.

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"He put the mist in pessimist," said the newspapers, frequently caricaturing the Notre Dame coach with crying towel in hand, tears of despair rolling down the sad Irish face. A black pessimist by nature, leahy exaggerated his hopelessness for the press; it was his idea of colorful copy.

He usually made his pre-game statement unshaven, wearing a shirt a size or two too large, appearing more haggard than he actually was after sleepless nights of preparation. "Gentlemen," he would purr softly, like a repentant felon before a magistrate, "the lads representing Our Lady's institution simply do not have the stamina to defeat the young gentlemen from [let's say] the United States Military Academy (Leahy-talk for Army). Our team is woefully unworthy to take the field against such outstanding opponents. Perhaps, ooohh, perhaps the fault is my own. I have not prepared the players as well as I should. I know I have not. Surely our boys are weak and slow, our line small and inexperienced, our runners hampered with injuries. .." and so on.

Of course, the team leahy had so described would storm out and butcher the unfortunates on the other side. But nothing stopped Lachrymose Leahy's gloomy predictions. Before the beginning of one season he repeatedly insisted, quite seriously, that he didn't expect his lads to get a first down all year. The team turned out to be one of his best.

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What his players remember most are those practices. Warm up exercises and calisthenics seemed like nap-time. Frank Leahy demanded two hours of all-out, full speed, hard-hitting football every afternoon.

Loaded with the deepest talent ever seen on a college team, the high-strung coach could afford the luxury of almost daily scrimmages. Injuries? Leahy never worried about those; he had too many talented replacements sitting on the bench. Besides, he wasn't above asking a boy to play hurt. "We all need a little more Christian Scientist in us," he used to say.

Often, during the roughest scrimmages, the coach would violently shake his head. "Lads," he would whine, "what seems to be our problem? I see no blood. I see no fights. Our lady on the dome is watching, and she must have turned her back on us in shame." Sure enough, the fights, the blood, the monster intensity that makes for winning football would come in a hurry.

Three of this era's best assistant coaches were nicknamed The Parrot, The Enforcer, and Captain Bligh. If nothing else, that should give you some idea of what it was like to play Notre Dame football in the glory years of Francis William Leahy.