The Good, Better, Best Chant › Where it came from

Where the Good, Better, Best Chant Came From

Ben Johnson didn't write it. Neither did his high school coach. The chain runs from a 19th-century proverb through a camp speaker, a North Carolina locker room, and a quarterback who became a head coach.

The short version

Ben Johnson learned the chant as a kid around the A.C. Reynolds High School football program in Asheville, North Carolina, where head coach Bobby Poss had the Rockets yell it after every win. Poss first heard it in the early 1990s at a Fellowship of Christian Athletes camp, from a speaker named Richard Bell. Johnson brought it to Chicago in his first season as Bears head coach, 2025 (ESPN, ABC7 Chicago).

The proverb itself is far older than any of them; see who said it.

Richard Bell and the FCA camp

In the early 1990s Bobby Poss was the dean of a Fellowship of Christian Athletes camp. One night he asked a speaker, Richard Bell, to get the assembly fired up. Poss told ESPN: "I said, 'Hey, Richard, you need to really bring it tonight. I want you to get this bunch fired up.'" Bell's answer was the "Good, better, best!" call and response. It worked well enough that Poss kept it (ESPN).

Bobby Poss and the A.C. Reynolds Rockets

Poss arrived at Reynolds in 1994 and found the school had no fight song, so he started a tradition instead: after every win the Rockets gathered and yelled the chant back to him, ending not with a team name on three but with "Big. Green. Machine." (ESPN, Greensboro Sports). He was a coach who liked a gesture. ESPN opens its story with Poss, up big at halftime and worried about a letdown, demanding a phone book and tearing the Yellow Pages in half in front of the team. The Rockets won going away (ESPN).

Johnson's father Don was on Poss's staff, so Ben was the Rockets' water boy before he was their quarterback. By the time he was the varsity backup as a sophomore, the chant was a familiar motto. Reynolds won the North Carolina 4A state title in 2002 with Johnson at quarterback (ESPN, Marquee Sports Network). Charles McCurry, who later became Reynolds' head coach, has said he would have let Johnson call the plays back then if he had known what he knows now (WGN Radio).

Johnson wasn't the only one who carried it out of Asheville. Country singer Chase Rice, a linebacker and co-captain on those Reynolds teams, couldn't wait to make varsity as a freshman just to do the chant, and his band has done it before every show for more than a decade (ESPN, iHeart; more on the Chase Rice page). Tim Bagamary, now head coach at Eastern Guilford High School in North Carolina, came through the same program and uses it with his Wildcats (Greensboro Sports).

Ben Johnson brings it to Chicago

Johnson was hired as the Bears' head coach in January 2025. After the team's first preseason game under him, a 38–0 win over Buffalo at Soldier Field on August 17, 2025, he gathered the players in the locker room and told them to repeat after him. Some were skeptical. Safety Kevin Byard later admitted his first reaction was that it was, well, a little corny (Sports Illustrated).

The public first saw it after Johnson's first regular-season win, 31–14 over Dallas on September 21, 2025, when the team posted the locker-room video. From then on the Bears' social accounts posted the speech after every win, and the chant spread from the locker room to bars, youth fields and classrooms across Chicago (Chicago Tribune via KDH News, Fox 32).

By the time the Bears beat Green Bay 31–27 in the wild-card round on January 10, 2026, their first playoff win in fifteen years, the chant was a national story (Bleacher Nation). A Chicago hip-hop group released a song built on it (WGN). Johnson brought it back for the 2026 season after the opener in Charlotte (Sun-Times). The notable speeches are logged on the speeches page.

Why it stuck

Poss, watching from North Carolina, told ESPN what he sees in the clips: "When he yells 'Good, better, best!' to the players, you can tell it's deep down inside, he's bringing it from within. He stays all bound up during the ball game. And that's about as big an emotion you'll get out of Ben Johnson" (ESPN).

Players describe it the same way. Defensive end Montez Sweat: "It's who he is. He's never satisfied. He always wants to get better each and every week, and just telling you that the good is not good enough" (ESPN). Byard, once past the corny stage, said the message only landed after hearing it over and over: it's basically "never let it rest" (SI). A chant you only get to do after a win is a reward with a warning inside it. That's the whole trick.

The chain, in one line

A 19th-century schoolroom proverb → a Fellowship of Christian Athletes camp speaker named Richard Bell → Bobby Poss and the A.C. Reynolds Rockets → their water boy and later quarterback, Ben Johnson → the Chicago Bears locker room → the city of Chicago.

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