FARMINGTON – Bob Leib sheepishly says somebody should stamp an asterisk on his milestone.

Midway through his final season as the face, voice and mastermind of the University of Maine at Farmington soccer program, Leib registered the 400th win of his career. Within a week, he’d padded that total with three more triumphs.

Confronted with the weight of that well-rounded number, Leib squirmed in his chair and fought back with the self-deprecating humor that has made him one of Franklin County’s most enduring flatlanders.

“I cheated a little bit. I coached both teams for a couple years,” shrugged Leib, citing a six-year stretch from 1996 to 2001 in which he directed the men’s and women’s programs at UMF. “I got to watch a lot of games while my assistants did most of the coaching. The assistant coach got to yell and scream, and if things went well I got to take the credit. If things didn’t go well, I got to blame someone else.”

You can’t blame the university or the community at large for wondering what will happen when Leib turns over the reins to the UMF women’s soccer program after this season, ending a run of 31 autumns in charge of at least one team and championing his sport in the western foothills.

Never mind the mighty shadow cast by Leib’s sheer record of 403 wins (more than half of those with the men’s squad), 155 losses and 48 ties.

Leib was instrumental in starting both the Farmington Recreation Department and Mt. Blue High School programs from scratch.

Because of UMF’s tradition as a training ground for future educators, Leib’s coaching tree likely shades each of Maine’s 16 counties.

It branches far beyond the state line, too. Leib’s former assistant, Mark Krikorian, now leads the nationally ranked program at Florida State University.

“He has been instrumental not just in UMF soccer, but the development of soccer in Maine,” said Jamie Beaudoin, who played for Leib and then succeeded him as head coach of the UMF men’s program. “He was the first coach around here ever to do a soccer camp. There was no such thing. He definitely is one of the most influential people in the sport. I think it eventually would have happened, but he started the process.”

Leib has never experienced a losing soccer season with the Beavers since arriving in 1977. He also is entering his final year at the helm of the school’s softball program, having posted a winning record every spring since 1994.

“I think he’s one of the best Division III coaches in the country,” said Dr. Dennis Kamholtz, chair of health education at UMF. “With the talent we get here, he has a knack for getting the most out of them.”

Kamholtz recalled a recent conversation with some women’s soccer players who were disappointed with their performance in three early-season losses.

His simple word of advice: Pay attention to the boss.

“Every year, he makes the adjustments. I’ve seen it happen every time,” Kamholtz said. “The student-athletes that get here as freshmen can’t quite figure him out at first. By the time they’re seniors, they would lie down in traffic for him.”

UMF improved to 6-3 on Sunday afternoon with its win over Wheelock.

Leib transformed numerous individual talents into All-Americans and UMF Hall of Famers, but the thread tying together his four decades of constant success is an unselfish, defensive-oriented approach affectionately known as ‘Beaver Ball.’

“A lot of times we were out-skilled on the field, but that’s the great thing about soccer,” Beaudoin said. “It’s a sport where the better team doesn’t always win. Other sports, two teams might play a hundred times and one team will win a hundred.”

“We won more 1-0 games than we ever should have,” echoed Leib. “We won quite a few games on own-goals where we were never close to putting the ball in the net.”

After eight years as a men’s assistant at the University of Delaware, Leib, a native of West Chester, Pa., looked to build his own program at a smaller school.

Five years into his UMF tenure, Leib applied elsewhere before deciding that Farmington and Wilton were the ideal hamlets for he and wife Cynthia, a grade-school teacher, to bring up their sons and daughter.

There was only one drawback: No soccer programs to speak of. Leib took care of that himself, joining forces with then-new town recreation director Steve Shible to start a youth feeder system in 1980 and shepherding an upstart Mt. Blue program to varsity status in 1985.

“We have 13 teams with a total of 214 kids, and we’re in our 28th year,” said Shible, an Auburn native. “All the credit goes to Bob’s vision. Bob is salt of the earth. He’s a small guy, but he is a pillar of strength.”

Leib’s teams mirrored the man wearing the whistle and carrying the dry erase board.

“We didn’t have any superstars,” Leib said, “but we battled.”