BOBBY POSS WAS fuming. The A.C. Reynolds High School Rockets were up big at halftime, but the former varsity football coach at the Asheville, North Carolina, powerhouse sensed a letdown could be coming.
“Somebody get me a phone book!” Poss yelled.
One of his assistant coaches retrieved the weighty directory from Poss’ office, and players gathered around their head coach, confused but intrigued.
“I looked at them, I go, ‘I don’t think you really want to play hard,'” Poss recalled. “‘I don’t think you want to go out in the second half and play like you did in the first half. I think you all are ready to just chill.’ I said, ‘We’re not going to chill out.'”
Without hesitation, Poss ripped the spine of the yellow pages in half as the locker room erupted. The Rockets won that game handily.
Poss, 75, jokes that he can’t remember his golf score from the day before, let alone which team A.C. Reynolds beat and by how much after his phone book stunt. But Poss’ motivational tactics made an impact, including on his quarterback, Ben Johnson.
Another of Poss’ galvanizing tactics was a postgame chant the Rockets yelled after every win.
Good, better, best!
Never let it rest
Till your good gets better
And your better gets best
BIG. GREEN. MACHINE.
Fast forward to 2025 and Johnson is coaching one of the NFL’s surprise success stories. The Chicago Bears have won 11 games this season, and after each victory, Johnson hands out game balls and then performs an homage to his high school coach.
Good, better, best!
Never let it rest
Till your good gets better
And your better gets best
Bears on 3 … 1, 2, 3, BEARS!
“I remember being in that locker room, and that was just the rallying cry at that time,” Johnson said. “And I think there’s something to be said when a group of men, they’re all believing the same thing, they’re saying the same thing.
“It’s one heartbeat, one voice, and I think our guys have enjoyed it.”
If the Bears are chanting “Good, better, best!” on Saturday night, it means they’ve notched their first playoff win since Jan. 16, 2011. The Bears (11-6) host the Green Bay Packers (9-7-1) in the wild-card round (8 ET, Prime Video). The Packers are 1.5-point favorites.
“It’s something that caught fire within us in our locker room, and I love it,” quarterback Caleb Williams said. “I’m always right there like a little kid up there in the front of the classroom just ready to frickin’ raise my hand.”
POSS FIRST LEARNED the “Good, better, best!” chant when he was the dean at a Fellowship of Christian Athletes camp in the early 1990s. More than 900 boys from across the Southeast came to the national conference in Black Mountain, North Carolina, where Richard Bell, a former South Carolina head coach, was the guest speaker.
“I said, ‘Hey, Richard, you need to really bring it tonight,'” Poss said. “‘I want you to get this bunch fired up.'”
Bell knew just the chant to unleash during the assembly. “Good, better, best!” was so impactful it stuck with Poss.
When Poss reached A.C. Reynolds in 1994 and learned the school didn’t have a fight song, he kicked off a new tradition for the Rockets with a chant that was handed down from one coach to another.
A young Johnson, whose father Don was on Poss’ staff, was the water boy for the Rockets. By the time he was the varsity backup quarterback as a sophomore, “Good, better, best!” was a familiar motto.
Chase Rice was a star linebacker and co-captain for the Rockets alongside Johnson. As a freshman, he couldn’t wait to make the varsity squad to do the “Good, better, best!” chant.
“You knew you earned it,” Rice said. “You knew that it was coming. It’s just a thing at the end of the game like, yep, we did our job. We did what we were supposed to do.
“And you get excited.'”
Rice is currently a successful country music singer who has toured across the United States. He roomed with Johnson when they played at the University of North Carolina, and the two remain close friends and would see each other whenever Rice’s band was in town.
Last summer, Rice played at The Salt Shed on Chicago’s north side. Johnson and his wife, Jessica, hung out with the singer before he took the stage and witnessed the band’s pre-show ritual.
The Bears coach smiled.
For the past 13 years, before Rice and his band took the stage, the group gathered for a three-minute chant that started with “Good, better, best!”
Little did Rice know that months later, Johnson had a plan to introduce his team to the rallying cry that meant so much to both of them.
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Following a 38-0 preseason win over the Buffalo Bills on Aug. 17, Johnson gathered his team inside the locker room at Soldier Field.
He told players to repeat after him.
Good, better, best!
Never let it rest
Till your good gets better
And your better gets best
“It was kind of cheesy a little bit, to be honest,'” safety Kevin Byard III said. “The first time it was kind of like, ‘What is he doing? Like, what is this?’
“After a while, it was like we just kind of bought in. It’s just fun.”
AHEAD OF THE playoffs, the Bears commissioned Grammy Award-winning artist and Chicago native Common to narrate a hype video around the team’s slogan. Common weaved in lines such as:
“Good is turning five [wins] into 11
better is turning the D-linemen into pancakes
best is yet to come”
The Bears’ official website sells shirts and sweatshirts featuring the slogan, and they have been worn by players, coaches and support staff throughout the season.
The best is yet to come. 🐻⬇️ pic.twitter.com/LE3q4saKIK
— Chicago Bears (@ChicagoBears) January 8, 2026
Another way the team engages its fans is by posting videos on social media from its locker room after wins. And there have been viral moments.
On Nov. 29, the Bears went into Philadelphia and defeated the defending Super Bowl champion Eagles 24-15. It was Chicago’s fifth win in a row and marked the longest win streak of the season. It legitimized the Bears as playoff contenders.
“I know you guys are hungry for more, right?” Johnson asked his players as he slowly paced back and forth in the locker room. “Let me tell you something, the city of Chicago is hungry, too.”
After eight seconds of suspense, Johnson flung his shirt off and the visitors locker room inside Lincoln Financial Field erupted. What followed was a raucous rendition of “Good, better, best!” with a shirtless Johnson.
The Bears are the first team in NFL history to win six games in a season while trailing in the final 2:00 of the fourth quarter. For some, “Good, better, best!” tends to hit a little harder after those come-from-behind wins. Johnson has been seen walking into the locker room after some of those wins with the stern look of someone ready to focus on how to get better rather than to celebrate.
“It’s who [Johnson] is,” defensive end Montez Sweat said. “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. It’s got to get better.”
And while the Bears break out “Good, better, best!” only after wins, its message has also resonated after losses.
“I think that’s kind of the mantra of that whole deal, and guys have really embodied that, you know?” tight end Cole Kmet said. “I think we have all been able to put our egos aside come Monday morning or Tuesday and be able to look at the film with a critical eye and get better from it.”
GOOD. BETTER. BEST. pic.twitter.com/IeLAKvyf9T
— Chicago Bears (@ChicagoBears) November 2, 2025
Poss recognizes the teenage quarterback who helped him win his second state championship in 2002 in the locker room videos that get sent to him after every win. He sees much of himself in the 39-year-old coach because he knows where that passion was cultivated.
“When he yells ‘Good, better, best!’ to the players, you can tell it’s deep down inside, he’s bringing it from within,” Poss said. “And that’s Ben’s emotional outburst right there. He stays all bound up during the ball game.
“He’s letting it all go just as much as anybody else right there. When he lets out ‘Good, better, best!,’ the veins in his neck are sticking out. His emotion is ripping. And that’s about as big an emotion you’ll get out of Ben Johnson right there in that locker room when he gets that ‘Good, better, best!’ chant going.”
There’s just one other thing Poss wants to see.
“I just want to challenge Ben to see if he can take it to a higher level and tear a phone book in half,” Poss said. “I said he can take his shirt off, but I want to see him tear a phone book.”
If Johnson can somehow lead the Bears to their first Super Bowl title since the 1985 season, anything is possible.
