Bear Bryant Quotes

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.

There's no substitute for guts.

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

If you whoop and holler all the time, the players just get used to it.

It's nice to have the opportunity to play for so much money, but it's nicer to win it.

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

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

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

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

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.

You win games with your strengths, not your weaknesses.

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.

Don't talk too much. Don't pop off. Don't talk after the game until you cool off.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

I ain't never been nothin but a winner.

You have to learn what makes this or that Sammy run. For one it's a pat on the back, for another it's eating him out, for still another it's a fatherly talk, or something else. You're a fool if you think as I did as a young coach, that you can treat them all alike.

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.

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

Never be too proud to get down on your knees and pray.

They say I teach brutal football, but the only thing brutal about football is losing.

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.

No coach has ever won a game by what he knows; it's what his players know that counts.

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.

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.

Everybody's got pretty good players now, more players than there've ever been. If you play poorly, you're going to get beat.

There is no substitute for guts.

I'm happy with the coach we have. I think any one of the ones I asked them to consider would've been good.

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.

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

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.

Football changes and so do people.

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

Show class, have pride, and display character. If you do, winning takes care of itself.

That's all it takes to get people to win football games for you.

First there are those who are winners, and know they are winners. Then there are the losers who know they are losers. Then there are those who are not winners, but don't know it. They're the ones for me. They never quit trying. They're the soul of our game.

If I miss coaching that much, I could go to some little school where they didn't recruit, where all the kids wanted to go. I believe I could find somewhere to coach.

I'm no innovator. If anything I'm a stealer, or borrower. I've stolen or borrowed from more people than you can shake a stick at.

I'm no genius, but I'm a damn good football coach.

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

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.

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.

You never know how a horse will pull until you hook him to a heavy load.

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.