Bear Bryant Quotes about Leadership

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

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.

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.

There's a lot of blood, sweat, and guts between dreams and success.

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.

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 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.

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.

I'll never give up on a player regardless of his ability as long as he never gives up on himself. In time he will develop.

Losing doesn't make me want to quit. It makes me want to fight that much harder.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

Be aware of "yes" men. Generally, they are losers. Surround yourself with winners. Never forget - people win.

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.

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.

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

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