Bear Bryant
Bear Bryant
Paul William "Bear" Bryantwas an American college football player and coach. He was best known as the longtime 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. Upon his retirement in 1982, he held the record for most wins as head coach in collegiate football history with 323 wins. The Paul W. Bryant Museum, Paul W. Bryant Hall, Paul W. Bryant Drive, and...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionCoach
Date of Birth11 September 1913
CityFordyce, AR
CountryUnited States of America
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 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.
In a crisis, don't hide behind anything or anybody. They're going to find you anyway.
It's nice to have the opportunity to play for so much money, but it's nicer to win it.
I'm no miracle man. I guarantee nothing but hard work.
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.
When I was a young coach I used to say, "Treat everybody alike." That's bull. Treat everybody fairly.
Scout yourself. Have a buddy who coaches scout you.
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.
We can't have two standards, one set for the dedicated young men who want to do something ambitious and one set for those who don't.
Don't ever give up on ability. Don't give up on a player who has it.
I always want my players to show class, knock'em down, pat on the back, and run back to the huddle.
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.
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.