Building a championship football team

by Paul W. Bryant

THE TYPE OF BOY = SUCCESS OR FAILURE

The team with the best athletes will usually win the tough ball games, other things being equal. It is a well recognized fact that a coach is no better than his material. Therefore we must have the best material available in order to be a winner. I tell my coaches if they can recruit the best athletes to our school, then I can coach them. If they recruit mediocre athletes, then the assistants will have to coach them.

There are a number of qualifications that we look for in our athletes, and some of these are musts if the boys are to become champions. Football is nothing more than movement and contact. If a player has excellent movement but won’t make contact, he will never be a winner. Conversely, if a boy is mean, loves body contact, and likes to hit people, but is so slow he never gets to the ball carrier, then he will never make a winner either. There are ways to improve an individual’s quickness, but if a boy refuses to make contact, there is nothing that I know of to correct it.

The type of boy you select to play on your football team has a great deal to do with your ultimate success or failure. In order for our program to be successful, we try to select the boy with the following traits:

1. He must be dedicated to the game of football.

2. He must have the desire to excel and to win.

3. He must be tough mentally and physically.

4. He must be willing to make personal sacrifices.

5. He must put team glory first in place of personal glorification.

6. He must be a leader of men both on and off the field.

7. He should be a good student.

The Players Must Be Dedicated

A player must be dedicated to the game to the extent he is willing to work, sacrifice, cooperate and do what he possibly can to aid the team in victory. It is our duty as coaches to explain and show our boys the advantages of being winners, and to impress upon them the absolute necessity of it so they will put forth the much needed effort to accomplish the objective. It is important for the players to understand that football is not an easy game; nor is achieving fame an easy task. However, anything worth doing, is worth doing right. Therefore let’s do it right and be winners.

We refer to “the little extras” a boy must give in order to be a winner. These little extras really make the difference between good and great, whether it be on an individual or a team basis. When a boy puts into practice what you have been preaching about giving that extra effort when he is dog tired, going harder, rising to the occasion and doing what is necessary to win, then you are making progress and he is on the way to becoming a winner both individually and for his team.

There is nothing else I would rather see than when our boys are in their goal line defense, and they have supreme confidence they will keep the opposition from scoring. Every boy is taking it upon himself personally to do what is necessary to stop the ball carrier from scoring. When a coach has a team thinking like this, he will have a winner, and the boys will be winners when they get out of school.

Our Boys Must Have the Desire to Excel

We talk about the importance of particular aspects of coaching, such as full cooperation, long contracts, and other phases connected with coaching, but in the final analysis the success or failure of your program depends on the performance of the boys on the playing field. The game is generally won by the boys with the greatest desire. The difference in winning and losing is a very slight margin in a tough ball game. The same applies to two players of equal ability, except that one is great and the other is average. What is this slight margin? It’s the second and third effort, both individually and as a team. The boy who intercepts a pass or blocks a punt, or who gets his block then goes and knocks down another opponent is the individual who wants to excel. He will make the “big play” when it counts the most. He and others will give us “the winning edge.” These are the deciding factors in a tough ball game.

You Must Beat Your Opponent Physically

The teams that win consistently are the ones in the best physical condition. As a result they can play better football than their opposition in the fourth quarter. We also believe and teach our boys they must be more aggressive and “out-mean” our opponents if they expect to win consistently.

We may not be as smart and as tricky as our opposition, so we have to out-work ’em. If our boys are in top physical condition, if we “out-mean” and physically whip our opponents by hard blocking and tackling, and we are consistent in doing it, we’ll win a lot of football games. Football is a contact sport, and we must make the initial contact. In order to be a winner a boy must whip his man individually, and the team must beat the opponent physically.

Genuine All-Out Desire for Team Victory

Unity is the sound basis for any successful organization, and a football team is no exception. Without team unity you cannot have winners. We believe and coach team victory. Our goal is to win every game we play. We go into every game believing we will win it. Obviously we don’t win all of them, but we never go into a game believing we cannot come out of it the winner.

In order to have a winner, the team must have a feeling of unity; every player must put the team first ahead of personal glory. The boy who plays for us must be willing to make sacrifices. Victory means team glory for everyone. Individual personal glory means little if the team loses.

Must Be a Leader and a Good Student

In order to have winners your boys must be leaders both on and off the field. They should be good students, too. As was indicated previously, if your contract will give you sufficient time to work with the “solid citizens,” they will stay with you even if the going gets tough, and eventually they will be winners.

You Can’t See Into the Heart of a Boy

Most coaches take pride in their ability to pick out boys with athletic ability. I am no exception. However, you can never be absolutely certain about a boy because you cannot see what is inside of his heart. If we could do this, we would never make a mistake on a football player. We have seen it occur frequently where a player was pitiful in his freshman year, and the coaches almost give up on his ever improving. However, through determination, hard work, pride and desire the boy would finally develop and would play a lot of football before he graduated.

My assistant coaches have a favorite story they like to tell about a player we had at the University of Kentucky. We had started our first practice session in the fall of 1948 when a youngster walked out on the field. His appearance literally stopped practice. He had on a zoot suit with the trouser legs pegged so tightly I am certain he had difficulty squeezing his bare feet through the narrow openings. His suspenders drew up his trousers about six inches above his normal waist line. His long zoot coat extended almost to his knees. His “duck tail” hair style looked quite unusual. He was standing in a semi-slump, and twirling a long chain around his finger when one of my assistants walked over and asked him if he wanted someone. His answer, “Yeah. Where’s the Bear?”

He found me in a hurry. Our first impression was that he would never be a football player, but he was issued a uniform anyway. I figured he wouldn’t have the heart for our type of football and would eliminate himself quickly from the squad. To help him make up his mind in a hurry I instructed one of the coaches assisting me to see that he got plenty of extra work after practice. The boy’s name was difficult to pronounce, so we started calling him “Smitty.”

Despite “Smitty’s” outward appearance, he had the heart of a competitor and the desire to show everyone he was a good football player. He worked hard and proved his point. In his senior year he was selected the outstanding player in the 1951 Sugar Bowl game when we defeated the University of Oklahoma. After graduation he played for several years with the New York Giants as a fine defensive end. I shall always have the greatest respect for him.

Other coaches probably have had similar experiences where a boy with questionable ability has made good. If a boy has a great desire to play football, regardless of his ability, and you work with him, he is likely to make tremendous progress toward fulfilling his objective.