The Good, Better, Best Chant › Chase Rice
Chase Rice and the Good, Better, Best Chant
Before Ben Johnson brought it to the Bears, his high school teammate was already doing it backstage every night.
Chase Rice, the country singer, played linebacker and was a co-captain at A.C. Reynolds High School in Asheville, North Carolina, on the same teams as quarterback Ben Johnson. The Rockets did the "Good, better, best" chant after every win under coach Bobby Poss, and as a freshman Rice couldn't wait to make varsity just to be part of it (ESPN). Reynolds went 14–1 his senior season, 2003, and he went on to play at North Carolina (NCHSAA).
He kept the chant. In 2022, years before the Bears made it famous, Rice described his pre-show routine: a prayer, a shot of Jack, and "a chant called 'Good, Better, Best' that the whole band gets behind." He called it "a high school football chant from my high school, actually, that we do and it gets us all fired up before we go on stage" (iHeart). ESPN reported the band's version runs about three minutes and starts with the familiar four lines (ESPN).
So the chant reached two very different stages from the same locker room: Nashville tour buses from about 2012, and the Chicago Bears from 2025. The full chain is on where it came from.
Rice and Luke Combs also overlapped at A.C. Reynolds, a fact he likes to mention (iHeart).
FAQ
Does Chase Rice do the good, better, best chant?
Yes. His band does it before every show. He learned it as a football player at A.C. Reynolds High School, where Ben Johnson was his teammate.
Did Chase Rice and Ben Johnson play together?
Yes, at A.C. Reynolds High School in Asheville, N.C.; Johnson at quarterback, Rice at linebacker and co-captain.