Bear Bryant Quotes

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.

When you play defense you have to storm the fort or play cover - you can't do both.

Mama wanted me to be a preacher. I told her coachin' and preachin' were a lot alike.

I've had many a player tell me all through high school and right up until signing day that they were coming to Alabama, then they signed with somebody else.

In life, you'll have your back up against the wall many times. You might as well get used to it.

Every time a player goes out there, at least 20 people have some amount of influence on him. His mother has more influence than anyone. I know because I played, and I loved my mama.

Winning isn't imperative, but getting tougher in the fourth quarter is.

I ain't won but one. My team won the rest in spite of me.

I left Texas A&M because my school called me. Mama called, and when Mama calls, then you just have to come running.

I honestly believe that if you are willing to out-condition the opponent, have confidence in your ability, be more aggressive than your opponent and have a genuine desire for team victory, you will become the national champions. If you have all the above, you will acquire confidence and poise, and you will have those intangibles that win the close ones.

I'm not much of a golfer, I don't have any friends and all I like to do is go home and be alone, and not worry about ways not to lose.

If wanting to win is a fault, as some of my critics seem to insist, then I plead guilty. I like to win. I know no other way. It's in my blood.

There ought to be a special place in heaven for coaches' wives.

I didn't have a thing to do with picking a coach, and didn't want to. But I didn't think they'd pick one I didn't like.

Three rules for coaching: 1.) Surround yourself with people who can't live without football. 2.) Recognize winners. They come in all forms. 3.) Have a plan for everything.

I can reach a kid who doesn't have any ability as long as he doesn't know it.

Little things make the difference. Everyone is well prepared in the big things, but only the winners perfect the little things.

The fun never goes out, but it changes with the years, with winning and losing.

Get the winners into the game.

I always want my players to show class, knock'em down, pat on the back, and run back to the huddle.

I hope to get out before they start football next year.

If a man is a quitter, I'd rather find out in practice than in a game. I ask for all a player has so I'll know later what I can expect.

Lee Roy was the best college linebacker - bar none. He would have made every tackle on every play if they had stayed in bounds.

If you are going to be a successful duck hunter, you must go where the ducks are.

Being inside Tiger Stadium is like being on the inside of a drum.

I'll put you through hell, but at the end of it all we'll be champions.

It really doesn't cost anything to be nice, and the rewards can be
unimaginable

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.

The summer day is closed, the sun is set: Well they have done their office, those bright hours, The latest of whose train goes softly out In the red west.

I want to make sure I don't interfere with the success of that team next year. I don't see any way I could go to practice like most of 'em do, and not hurt the team. I'd go nuts if I tried doing that.

I've never recommended anybody go into coaching, 'cause if they have enough on the ball, if they can do without coaching, they should do without it. If they put as much work into it and
spend as much time, the rewards are going to be much better in something else.

I've made so many mistakes that if I don't make the same mistakes over, we're going to come pretty close to winning.

One man doesn't make a team. It takes eleven.

Offense sells tickets, but defense wins championships.

Georgia Tech beat us and Mississippi Southern tied us last year, and Texas beat us after we had the game won. We only played about five games the way we were capable of playing and lost one of those.

You try to make your team do something they're not capable of and you get murdered.

It's been years since I've had a real input in the game anyway. For this game, I've just tried to keep all the other stuff away from the players and coaches.

Hell, no! A tie is like kissing your sister!

In my lifetime, I may have put too much emphasis on winning, because here I am an old man and the only fun I've had is winning, and that's ridiculous.

Scout yourself. Have a buddy who coaches scout you.

Football changes and so do people.

I think the most important thing of all for any team is a winning attitude. The coaches must have it. The players must have it. The student body must have it. If you have dedicated players who believe in themselves, you don't need a lot of talent.

I'm known as a recruiter. Well you've got to have chicken to make chicken salad.

I don't hire anybody not brighter than I am. If they're not brighter than I am, I don't need them.

When you win, there's glory enough for everybody. When you lose, there's glory for none.

At Alabama, our players don't win Heisman Trophies. Our teams win National Championships.

My approach to the game has been the same at all the places I've been. Vanilla. The sure way. That means, first of all, to win physically. If you got eleven on a field, and they beat the other eleven physically, they'll win. They will start forcing mistakes. They'll win in the fourth quarter.

You have to be willing to out-condition your opponents.

I plan on staying at Alabama for the rest of my career. I guarantee that I'll be here for you through it all, regardless of what happens.

If we'd beaten 'em, I wouldn't be going out.

The idea of molding men means a lot to me.

The biggest mistake coaches make is taking borderline cases and trying to save them. I'm not talking about grades now, I'm talking about character. I want to know before a boy enrolls about his home life, and what his parents want him to be.

Most coaches study the films when they lose. I study them when we win -to see if I can figure out what I did right

Football games are generally won by the boys with the greatest desire.

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.

Don't give up. Reach down inside of you and you'll find something left.

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.

I tell young players who want to be coaches, who think they can put up with all the headaches and heartaches, can you live without it? If you can live without it, don't get in it.

If there is one thing that has helped me as a coach, it's my ability to recognize winners, or good people who can become winners by paying the price.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Don't talk too much or too soon.

When I was a young coach I used to say, "Treat everybody alike." That's bull. Treat everybody fairly.

I'm no miracle man. I guarantee nothing but hard work.

I told them my system was based on the "ant plan," that I'd gotten the idea watching a colony of ants in Africa during the war. A whole bunch of ants working toward a common goal.

Don't tolerate lazy people. They are losers.

The faint old man shall lean his silver head To feel thee; thou shalt kiss the child asleep, And dry the moistened curls that overspread His temples, while his breathing grows more deep.

If it is worth playing, it is worth paying the price to win.

Don't ever give up on ability. Don't give up on a player who has it.

There is a big difference in wanting to and willing to.

Recruiting is the one thing I hate. I won't do it unless my coaches tell me I've just got to. The whole process is kind of undignified for me and the young man.

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.

I think I'm telling the truth. I sat by Ray Perkins at the Hall of Fame dinner in New York, and at that time he didn't know he was our coach and I didn't either.

Nearly every coach I've talked with tells me that the attention you get from media and other people is the thing you miss most. I don't know if that's right.

If they don't have a winning attitude, I don't want them.

If you want to walk the heavenly streets of gold, you gotta know the password, "Roll, Tide, Roll!"

I ain't never had much fun. I ain't never been two inches away from a football. Here guys go fishing on the day of the game, hunting, golfing, and all I want to do is be alone, studying how not to lose.

Sacrifice. Work. Self-discipline. I teach these things, and my boys don't forget them when they leave.

You must learn how to hold a team together. You must lift some men up, calm others down, until finally they've got one heartbeat. Then you've got yourself a team.

Baton Rouge happens to be the worst place in the world for a visiting team. It's like being inside a drum.

I don't care how much talent a team has - if the boys don't think tough, practice tough, and live tough, how they play tough on Saturday.

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.

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!

There is no sin in not liking to play; it's a mistake for a boy to be there if he doesn't want to.

If you don't have discipline, you can't have a successful program.