The Good, Better, Best Chant: Words, Origin and Meaning

One page with the answer to every question people ask about the chant, each fact linked to where it came from.

What is the Good, Better, Best chant?

"Good, better, best" is the call-and-response chant the Chicago Bears do in the locker room after every win, led by head coach Ben Johnson. He shouts each line and the players shout it back, then the team breaks on "Bears on three."

The full words (every variant is on the words page):

Good, better, best!
Never let it rest.
'Til your good gets better,
And your better gets best.

Some versions say "until" for "'til" and "your better is best" for "gets best"; Johnson's locker-room version uses "gets" on both lines, per ESPN and Fox 32.

What it means: good is the floor, not the goal. The chant is a promise to keep improving after a win, which is why the team only does it after wins and why players say its message hits hardest after a loss. More on what it means.

Where the chant came from

Ben Johnson brought the chant to Chicago from his own high school team. He played quarterback at A.C. Reynolds High School in Asheville, North Carolina, where head coach Bobby Poss had the Rockets yell it after every win; Reynolds won the 4A state title in 2002, per ESPN and Marquee Sports Network.

Poss didn't invent it either. He first heard it in the early 1990s as the dean of a Fellowship of Christian Athletes camp, where a speaker named Richard Bell used it to fire up the assembly, and it stuck with him (ESPN). The Reynolds version ended "Big. Green. Machine."; the Bears version ends "Bears on three" (ABC7 Chicago).

The proverb behind the chant

The chant is an old English schoolroom rhyme, not a football invention. The most common wording is "Good, better, best. Never let it rest. 'Til your good is better and your better is best."

Who wrote it is unknown. Quote sites almost universally credit St. Jerome, the 4th-century translator of the Latin Bible, but no Jerome text contains it, and a rhyme that only works in modern English can't be a literal 1,600-year-old quotation. It was in print in an American newspaper by 1897 and in Australian advertising by 1904 (Fauxtations). Tim Duncan quoted it for his whole career and credited his mother, not himself (KENS 5). The full paper trail is on who really said it.

How the Bears use it

The Bears only chant it after wins, and the team's social accounts post the locker-room speech after every one, which is how it spread from the locker room to the whole city (Chicago Tribune via KDH News).

The latest chants

• 
  No. 19 · Week 8 at SeahawksW 34–17 · November 2, 2026
• 
  No. 18 · Week 7 vs PatriotsW 30–24 · October 22, 2026
• 
  No. 17 · Week 6 at FalconsW 31–23 · October 18, 2026

See all 19 wins, game by game →

Every chant in one table: the full timeline. The speeches that made it famous: the speeches page.

Using the chant with your own team

Coaches, teachers and parents: the chant works for a youth team or a classroom because it praises improvement, not winning. Johnson's rules, in short: only after wins; game balls first; coach calls, team answers; keep it under fifteen seconds; make the break your own team's name. The saying is a public-domain proverb, so print it freely, but keep team names, logos and league marks off anything you make. Free posters, a printable and a one-page coach's card are on the coaches page.

FAQ