Sport: A Perfectionist Retires

Notre Dame's Football Coach Frank Leahy was raised in Winner, S.Dak., and the name was prophetic. As coach of the Fighting Irish, Leahy piled up a record which rivaled even that of Knute Rockne. In eleven seasons, his Notre Dame teams won 87 games (and four national championships) while losing only eleven. But Perfectionist Leahy was a sideline-pacing, hat-crushing pessimist who drove himself harder than he drove his teams, was forced to go to the Mayo Clinic for repeated physical checkups. Last season, stricken with acute pancreatitis, he was even given last rites. This week, on doctors' orders to take life easier, 45-year-old Frank Leahy resigned. Said Leahy, in a rare mood of relaxation: "It's a tremendous weight off my mind to get out of the game, much as I love it. I will weigh three or four business offers."

The new Notre Dame coach: Terry Brennan, 25, former Irish halfback and a Leahy assistant since September.