'Good, better, best' didn't start with Bears — just ask Cubs great Billy Williams

“Good, better, best!

“Never let it rest!

“Until the good gets better and the better gets best!”

Chicago’s favorite mantra — we can’t get enough of it, can we? — rings from Rogers Park to Hegewisch, from the lakefront to the city’s western border, to suburbs in all directions and to every corner of the earth inhabited by a devotee of our sports scene.

We’re chanting it with neighbors, with coworkers, to passersby on the street wearing headphones and bewildered expressions. See that brick wall? Come on, we’ve got the motivational refrain to help us run right through it.

All this “good, better, best”-ing, and we’ve got one man to thank for it — Cubs Hall of Famer Billy Williams, of course.

What, you were expecting Bears coach Ben Johnson? Yeah, fine, him, too.

“It’s been really exciting,” the 87-year-old Williams shared in a phone call a couple of days before Cubs Convention got underway. “I’m really enjoying the connection.”

As all Bears fans know, Johnson brought “good, better, best” to his team and it has become a postgame staple, the coach calling out lines and his players repeating them in celebration of every win. All season, the Bears’ social-media team has shared these scenes in one viral video after another. If there’s one thing the 39-year-old rookie coach is known for even more than F-bombing the Packers, it’s his 17-word crash course in Bears culture.

Johnson proudly pilfered the mantra from his own coach at A.C. Reynolds High School in Asheville, N.C., Bobby Poss, for whom Johnson played quarterback and won a state championship in 2002. Those Rockets chanted all the way to Kenan Stadium at the University of North Carolina, where they knocked off the Northern Nash team from Rocky Mount 14-7 for the title. Johnson completed all of two passes for 16 yards in that game, but who was counting? As a team, they had something special.

But Poss had nothing on Lillie Dixon. More than 50 years before Johnson chanted along with his coach, Williams did so with the principal of Whistler (Ala.) Elementary School. Every Wednesday, in fact, Dixon held a school assembly that concluded with those very words.

“I can still hear her saying it, you know,” Williams said. “It was a positive chant for me my whole life, just like it’s a positive chant for the Chicago Bears. I’m telling you, it’s great.”

Williams repeated the words in his head as he blossomed into a star athlete at Mobile County Training School, which he attended from seventh through 12th grades, and continued to repeat them throughout a brilliant 18-year major league career.

Unfortunately, the chant didn’t get the 1969 Cubs over the top against the Miracle Mets, who — in a truly grand coincidence — had a pair of starting outfielders, Tommie Agee and Cleon Jones, who’d gone to Mobile County Training School, too, four years behind Williams. The school didn’t have a baseball team, if you can believe it, but it was strong in football. Williams and Agee were defensive ends. Jones, later an All-Star with the ’69 Mets, was a prolific running back who scored 26 touchdowns as a senior, breaking the school record held by Williams’ older brother, Franklin.

The memories are rich and vivid all these years later, because home for Williams — whose late wife of 61 years, Shirley, was his high school sweetheart — has always meant that much.

That’s why Williams made Principal Dixon and “good, better, best” a centerpiece of his Hall of Fame induction speech in 1987.

“Year after year, [the words] would circle and become more and more pronounced as my career unfolded,” he said then. “By working hard, I wanted to be the best ballplayer in the big leagues. I put these words into action, and worked harder and harder each year. These few words were the driving force behind my desire to succeed.”

Alas, Dixon wasn’t alive to hear the tribute, having died a couple of months earlier. Williams had hoped to have her in attendance as his guest in Cooperstown, N.Y.

“She was such a great teacher,” he recalled, a lifetime later. “She wasn’t just great for me but for so many school kids. She inspired us all.”

These days, Williams — an avid Bears watcher — is transported back in time every time he sees a video of Johnson crouching intensely in the locker room, fist pumping, “good, better, best”-ing his heart out along with the NFC North champions.

“Motivational, isn’t it?” Williams said. “The players really seem to be accepting it.”

Williams doesn’t know quarterback Caleb Williams, yet he feels a connection with the young star he refers to as his “namesake.”

“The key to the whole thing is they came up with a good offensive line to give Caleb time to see his wide receivers,” the old ballplayer said, flashing his football chops.

Williams “can’t wait” for Sunday’s kickoff against the Rams. As usual, he’ll watch until the end.

“I’m enjoying it, man,” he said. “The whole family is enjoying it.”

Look, he just happened to love a certain chant first. It’s not like he’s territorial about it.

“Matter of fact, go listen to Tim Duncan’s speech,” Williams suggested.

Sure enough, during the former NBA great’s own Hall of Fame induction speech in 2021, he paid a touching tribute to his mother, whom he’d lost when he was only 14.

Said Duncan, “She instilled in me, ‘Good, better best, never let it rest, until your good is better and your better is best.’ ”

Boy, does it ever have a ring to it.