What Coach Bear Bryant Might Say To This Year's Team About Repeating

Larry Burton (Panama City Beach, Fl) A friend of mine asked me a question today that evoked this article.

He wondered what Coach Bryant would say to this year's team about the possibility to repeat as champions. In an attempt to answer his question, I'll summon up my recollection of his attitude and past thoughts about such things and give it a shot.

Coach Bryant walks in, you can hear a pin drop. He looks over the faces of the men in the locker room and then off into the distance and that gravelly voice starts slow and low and starts talking.

Men, I believe with all my heart there's not a finer place for a man to realize his dreams than right here and everyone should be dreaming of being a champion. It's good to see that this school is still writing history that includes championships. That's what Alabama is men, it is a champion, it deserves championships.

But it's also true that this championship last season is now part of that history. It's no longer the present and can only be in the future. That championship has come and gone. That team is now ink in the history books, this team has nothing to gloat about.

Each team is special and unique and no two are ever the same, they don't win the same way, they have different highlights, moments, circumstances, and people that make them individual.

Some of you in this room feel pretty special right now. You think you are a champion. You think because you were part of last year's championship you'll always be a champion. And you'd think wrong too.

Those men that walked off the field for the final time in their lives will be always be champions, they'll never have to taste another defeat and walk off the field with their head down. You on the other hand, still haven't proven you can do that.

Right now you're just like every other one of those teams that are sitting on zero and zero records. You have yet to prove who you are and what you can do as a team.

Last year's team was special, but that is not this year's team, not yet. I've learned a little something about repeating as champions. What I've learned best is, that it's a lot harder to repeat than win the first one. I've failed more at repeating than I did winning another one.

Championships are dangerous things. You'd think they'd be so sweet you couldn't wait to have another one, but the truth is they're so filling it takes you a while to get over the first helping of one.

Most teams are satisfied with that full feeling and just don't put the effort out there to get another one. Those are teams that don't have heart and don't show the class that got them to the first one. But this team has class, I know that because those are Alabama jerseys you put on for each game, if you don't have class you don't need to be here.

But do you have the heart? Can you keep on blocking that man when your legs feel like lead bricks? Can you hang in that pocket just one more second and get that ball off when you know what's happening the second it leaves your hand?

Can you beat that ball carrier to the corner just one more time when you feel like you're running in quicksand? If you can, then you have heart and combined with the class that Alabama is based on, you can be champions again.

If you can do your job and not be angry when a teammate lets you down and instead pick him back up to do it the next play, you have class. When you know that winning is the only thing that makes the soreness of your muscles worthwhile, you have heart.

When you combine heart and class no one can stop you but yourself. It only takes one player giving up at the wrong moment to make it all come apart. Can you look at everyone in this room right now and see anyone you think will give up on you? When you look in the mirror, do you see a man who is going to quit?

If you say no to these two questions, then you've made an oath as sacred as any you'll ever take. You're going to trust in your team mates but mostly, trust in yourself to succeed. You're going to trust that these men will make every sacrifice you make yourself and that you will make more than they do.

Then and only then, can you dream of being part of another championship. Then and only then will be worthy of that championship.

Trust, sacrifice, commitment, heart and class. They're just words unless you live them, and useless unless you live them 24 hours a day, seven days a week, not just when you're on the football field.

A champion is also a champion at midnight on a Friday night when he's making a decision that can let himself and his team mates down. A champion is a champion on Tuesday afternoon when he's studying for a test instead of shooting the bull. A champion is a champion in every word he says, every action he takes, every weight he lifts into the air, every sprint he runs.

If you do those same things like you would if there were 100,000 people watching you like they do on a Saturday afternoon, would you do them the same way?

Can each of you say that you are willing to be a champion? To do what it takes day in and day out, night in and night out? If this is too high a price to pay, you came to the wrong school. If this is too high a price then leave now because I want my men around other men who will pay that price.

The price of victory is high, but so are the rewards, pay that price and see for yourself, you'll only be sorry if you don't.