Coach Bear Bryant Quotes & Sayings

Our coach was absolutely out of his head. He must have read Bear Bryant's book. We had 78 players out. The first day 35 quit. Twenty quit the second day. We ended with 17 players. It was depressing. — Merlin Olsen

His mouth moved up to my ear. "Let me stroke you, swear to the gods, sweets, you loosen up just a hint, I'll make you come so hard you'll think you've exploded. — Kristen Ashley

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

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. — Bear Bryant

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

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. — 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 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

Coach (Bear) Bryant wanted to see who was tough in the spring, who he could count on in the fall. — Gene Stallings

When he was a small boy, he remembered asking his mother why she had chosen his father to make a life with. "Because he compliments me," she had answered. "Where I am missing skills, he has them. When I need someone, he is there. He is all that I am not and I am the same for him. That's what love is, Handro. — Travis Mohrman

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. — Bear Bryant

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

My first day as a manager was at Digital Equipment in Atlanta. I was a sales rep. I was promoted from among my peers, so one day I was a peer, and the next day I was their boss. — Carol Bartz

A writer helps to show you things you knew but didn't know you knew. — Dennis Potter

You are willing to risk your career and very probably your life for a woman you knew only three days. What kind of woman is worth that?
The only kind worth having, Major. — Donna Thorland

Russia's main weaknesses are inflexibility and dependence on energy resources — Christopher A. Pissarides

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. — Bear Bryant

No, no, no, no,no,' he gasped. 'You can't bring up your mum and dad while your hand is down there, Finke — Melina Marchetta

I find it so easy to read qualified commentators who are 180 degrees opposed to each other. — Neil Oliver

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

It makes sense that whatever the topic is, it's more compelling if you can provide the audience with a range of perspectives, and you can cross disciplines. And you don't have to control what people take out of it. — Bernice Johnson Reagon

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

It is alarming ... to see Mr Gandhi, a seditious Middle Temple lawyer, now posing as a fakir of a type well-known in the East, striding half-naked up the steps of the Vice-regal Palace while he is still organising and conducting a campaign of civil disobedience. — Winston Churchill

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

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. — Bear Bryant

I thought I heard Billy sniffling and I asked him what was wrong. He said, "Mal, you haven't heard, have you?"
"Heard what?"
"Coach Bryant died this morning."
I don't remember saying another word. I don't remember hanging up the telephone or even leaving the phone booth. It was the saddest moment of my career.
I just leaned up against the aging brick wall of the coffee shop and cried. — Mal Moore With Steve Townsend