Bear Bryant Quotes

12 Sourced Quotes

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.

Bear Bryant
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.

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

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

Bear Bryant
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
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.

Bear Bryant
But it's still a coach's game. Make no mistake. You start at the top. If you don't have a good one at the top, you don't have a cut dog's chance. If you do, the rest falls into place. You have to have good assistants, and a lot of things, but first you have to have the chairman of the board.

Bear Bryant
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.

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

Bear Bryant
Motivating people- the ingredient that separates winners from losers.

Bear Bryant
I don't have any ideas; my coaches have them. I just pass the ideas on and referee the arguments.

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

Bear Bryant