Best Bear Bryant Quotes
1- “It’s not the will to win that matters-everyone has that. It’s the will to prepare to win that matters.” ~ Bear Bryant
2- “There is a big difference in wanting to and willing to.” ~ Bear Bryant
3- “When you make a mistake, there are only three things you should ever do about it: 1. Admit it. 2. Learn from it, and 3. Don’t repeat it.” ~ Bear Bryant
4- “Never be too proud to get down on your knees and pray.” ~ Bear Bryant
5- “It really doesn’t cost anything to be nice, and the rewards can be
unimaginable” ~ Bear Bryant
6- “Little things make the difference. Everyone is well prepared in the big things, but only the winners perfect the little things.” ~ Bear Bryant
7- “Have a plan. Follow the plan, and you’ll be surprised how successful you can be. Most people don’t have a plan. That’s why it’s easy to beat most folks.” ~ Bear Bryant
8- “Never quit. It is the easiest cop-out in the world. Set a goal and don’t quit until you attain it. When you do attain it, set another goal, and don’t quit until you reach it. Never quit.” ~ Bear Bryant
9- “It’s awfully important to win with humility. It’s also important to lose. I hate to lose worse than anyone, but if you never lose you won’t know how to act. If you lose with humility, then you can come back.” ~ Bear Bryant
10- “The old lessons (work, self-discipline, sacrifice, teamwork, fighting to achieve) aren’t being taught by many people other than football coaches these days. The football coach has a captive audience and can teach these lessons because the communication lines between himself and his players are more wide open than between kids and parents. We better teach these lessons or else the country’s future population will be made up of a majority of crooks, drug addicts, or people on relief.” ~ Bear Bryant
11- “Sure, I’d love to beat Notre Dame, don’t get me wrong. But nothing matters more than beating that cow college on the other side of the state!” ~ Bear Bryant
12- “You never know how a horse will pull until you hook him to a heavy load.” ~ Bear Bryant
13- “I’ll never give up on a player regardless of his ability as long as he never gives up on himself. In time he will develop.” ~ Bear Bryant
14- “Don’t tolerate lazy people. They are losers.” ~ Bear Bryant
15- “I have always tried to teach my players to be fighters. When I say that, I don’t mean put up your dukes and get in a fistfight over something. I’m talking about facing adversity in your life. There is not a person alive who isn’t going to have some awfully bad days in their lives. I tell my players that what I mean by fighting is when your house burns down, and your wife runs off with the drummer, and you’ve lost your job and all the odds are against you. What are you going to do? Most people just lay down and quit. Well, I want my people to fight back.” ~ Bear Bryant
16- “Show class, have pride, and display character. If you do, winning takes care of itself.” ~ Bear Bryant
17- “The first time you quit, it’s hard. The second time, it gets easier. The third time, you don’t even have to think about it.” ~ Bear Bryant
18- “In a crisis, don’t hide behind anything or anybody. They’re going to find you anyway.” ~ Bear Bryant
19- “I make my practices real hard because if a player is a quitter, I want him to quit in practice, not in a game.” ~ Bear Bryant
20- “In order to have a winner, the team must have a feeling of unity; every player must put the team first ahead of personal glory.” ~ Bear Bryant
21- “What are you doing here? Tell me why you are here. If you are not here to win a national championship, you’re in the wrong place. You boys are special. I don’t want my players to be like other students. I want special people. You can learn a lot on the football field that isn’t taught in the home, the church, or the classroom. There are going to be days when you think you’ve got no more to give and then you’re going to give plenty more. You are going to have pride and class. You are going to be very special. You are going to win the national championship for Alabama.” ~ Bear Bryant
22- “If you believe in yourself and have dedication and pride – and never quit, you’ll be a winner. The price of victory is high but so are the rewards.” ~ Bear Bryant
23- “Don’t give up at half time. Concentrate on winning the second half.” ~ Bear Bryant
24- “There’s a lot of blood, sweat, and guts between dreams and success.” ~ Bear Bryant
25- “Offense sells tickets, but defense wins championships.” ~ Bear Bryant
26- “The Lord expects you to do some things for yourself.” ~ Bear Bryant
27- “A champion pays an extra price to be better than anyone else.” ~ Bear Bryant
28- “Losing doesn’t make me want to quit. It makes me want to fight that much harder.” ~ Bear Bryant
29- “Motivating people- the ingredient that separates winners from losers.” ~ Bear Bryant
30- “Don’t talk too much or too soon.” ~ Bear Bryant
31- “Expect the unexpected.” ~ Bear Bryant
32- “You win games with your strengths, not your weaknesses.” ~ Bear Bryant
33- “If you want to walk the heavenly streets of gold, you gotta know the password, “Roll, Tide, Roll!”” ~ Bear Bryant
34- “I have had players who are good, and who know they are good; I have had players who are bad and
know they are bad; I have had players who are good, but who don’t know they are good; I have had
players who are bad, but who don’t know they are bad. It is this last group that has won more games for
me than the first three groups combined.” ~ Bear Bryant
35- “Set goals – high goals for you and your organization. When your organization has a goal to shoot for, you create teamwork, people working for a common good.” ~ Bear Bryant
36- “If they don’t have a winning attitude, I don’t want them.” ~ Bear Bryant
37- “Find your own picture, your own self in anything that goes bad. It’s awfully easy to mouth off at your staff or chew out players, but if it’s bad, and your the head coach, you’re responsible. If we have an intercepted pass, I threw it. I’m the head coach. If we get a punt blocked, I caused it. A bad practice, a bad game, it’s up to the head coach to assume his responsibility.” ~ Bear Bryant
38- “Recognize winners. They come in all forms.” ~ Bear Bryant
39- “You take those little rascals, talk to them good, pat them on the back, let them think they are good, and they will go out and beat the biguns.” ~ Bear Bryant
40- “If anything goes bad, I did it. If anything goes semi-good, we did it. If anything goes real good, then you did it. That’s all it takes to get people to win football games for you.” ~ Bear Bryant
41- “No coach has ever won a game by what he knows; it’s what his players know that counts.” ~ Bear Bryant
42- “People who are in it for their own good are individualists. They don’t share the same heartbeat that makes a team so great. A great unit, whether it be football or any organization, shares the same heartbeat.” ~ Bear Bryant
43- “If you want to coach you have three rules to follow to win. One, surround yourself with people who can’t live without football. I’ve had a lot of them. Two, be able to recognize winners. They come in all forms. And, three, have a plan for everything. A plan for practice, a plan for the game. A plan for being ahead, and a plan for being behind 20-0 at half, with your quarterback hurt and the phones dead, with it raining cats and dogs and no rain gear because the equipment man left it at home.” ~ Bear Bryant
44- “There is no substitute for guts.” ~ Bear Bryant
45- “Don’t give up. Reach down inside of you and you’ll find something left.” ~ Bear Bryant
46- “But there’s one thing about quitters you have to guard against – they are contagious. If one boy goes, the chances are he’ll take somebody with him, and you don’t want that. So when they would start acting that way, I used to pack them up and get them out, or embarrass them, or do something to turn them around.” ~ Bear Bryant
47- “The price of victory is high, but so are the rewards.” ~ Bear Bryant
48- “Baton Rouge happens to be the worst place in the world for a visiting team. It’s like being inside a drum.” ~ Bear Bryant
49- “You’re still going to win with preparation and dedication and plain old desire. If you don’t have genuine desire, you won’t be dedicated enough to prepare properly.” ~ Bear Bryant
50- “Sacrifice. Work. Self-discipline. I teach these things, and my boys don’t forget them when they leave.” ~ Bear Bryant
