Paul William “Bear” Bryant was an American college football player and coach. He was best known as the head coach of the University of Alabama football team. During his 25-year tenure as Alabama’s head coach, he amassed six national championships and thirteen conference championships. These Bear Bryant quotes on success, practice, leadership, winning, losing will motivate you.
Best Bear Bryant Quotes
- “Never be too proud to get down on your knees and pray.” ~ Bear Bryant
- “Little things make the difference. Everyone is well prepared in the big things, but only the winners perfect the little things.” ~ Bear Bryant
- “It really doesn’t cost anything to be nice, and the rewards can be
unimaginable” ~ Bear Bryant - “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
- “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
- “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
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“Expect the unexpected.” ~ Bear Bryant
- “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
- “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
- “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
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“Show class, have pride and display character. If you do, winning takes care of itself.” ~ Bear Bryant
- “Losing doesn’t make me want to quit. It makes me want to fight that much harder.” ~ Bear Bryant, Bear Bryant quotes on losing
- “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
- “You never know how a horse will pull until you hook him to a heavy load.” ~ Bear Bryant
- “The Lord expects you to do some things for yourself.” ~ Bear Bryant
- “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
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“Motivating people- the ingredient that separates winners from losers.” ~ Bear Bryant
- “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
- “There’s a lot of blood, sweat, and guts between dreams and success.” ~ Bear Bryant
- “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
- “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
- “Offense sells tickets, but defense wins championships.” ~ Bear Bryant
- “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 Quotes
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“In a crisis, don’t hide behind anything or anybody. They’re going to find you anyway.” ~ Bear Bryant
- “Don’t give up at half time. Concentrate on winning the second half.” ~ Bear Bryant
- “If you want to walk the heavenly streets of gold, you gotta know the password, “Roll, Tide, Roll!”Don’t talk too much or too soon.” ~ Bear Bryant ~ Bear Bryant
- “You win games with your strengths, not your weaknesses.” ~ Bear Bryant, Bear Bryant quotes on strength
- “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
- “I’ll never give up on a player regardless of his ability as long as he never gives upon himself. In time he will develop.” ~ Bear Bryant
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“A champion pays an extra price to be better than anyone else.” ~ Bear Bryant
- “The price of victory is high, but so are the rewards.” ~ Bear Bryant
- “If they don’t have a winning attitude, I don’t want them.” ~ Bear Bryant
- “Don’t tolerate lazy people. They are losers.” ~ Bear Bryant
- “No coach has ever won a game by what he knows; it’s what his players know that counts.” ~ Bear Bryant
- “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
- “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
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“Baton Rouge happens to be the worst place in the world for a visiting team. It’s like being inside a drum.” ~ Bear Bryant
- “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.” ~ Bear Bryant
- “In life, you’ll have your back up against the wall many times. You might as well get used to it.” ~ Bear Bryant
- “At Alabama, our players don’t win Heisman Trophies. Our teams win National Championships.” ~ Bear Bryant
- “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” ~ Bear Bryant
- “Be aware of “yes” men. Generally, they are losers. Surround yourself with winners. Never forget – people win.” ~ Bear Bryant
- “Mama wanted me to be a preacher. I told her coachin’ and preachin’ were a lot alike.” ~ Bear Bryant
- “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
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“If it is worth playing, it is worth paying the price to win.” ~ Bear Bryant
- “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 the 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
- “I don’t hire anybody not brighter than I am. If they’re not brighter than I am, I don’t need them.” ~ Bear Bryant
- “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.” ~ Bear Bryant
- “I’ll put you through hell, but at the end of it all we’ll be champions.” ~ Bear Bryant
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“Recognize winners. They come in all forms.” ~ Bear Bryant
- “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.” ~ Bear Bryant
- “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 - “The fun never goes out, but it changes with the years, with winning and losing.” ~ Bear Bryant
- “You’re still going to win with preparation and dedication and plain old desire. If you don’t have a genuine desire, you won’t be dedicated enough to prepare properly.” ~ Bear Bryant
