For more than twelve years, country star Chase Rice and his band have circled up forty-five minutes before every show to fire off the same four-line chant he learned as a teenager at A.C. Reynolds High School in Asheville, North Carolina, TheAthletic reports. It came from their football program and never left him, and it rubbed off on Ben Johnson .

Rice calls it a core memory and says the mindset shaped the way their team attacked every week. Before his Chicago show in June, he led the chant again. When he looked up, he saw a familiar smile. Ben Johnson, his former high school teammate and now the Bears’ offensive coordinator, was on the tour bus watching.

Three months later, after Chicago earned its first win of the season against the Cowboys, Johnson stood in the locker room and le

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