As I’ve written once or twice before, I rarely dream. And yet, I’ve now had two memorable dreams this week. The first one, of course, was silly and odd. That is, unless you do not consider a dream where I am trying to make amends with ex-girlfriends I have wronged and having one of them try to kill me by running me off the road with a semi-truck to be silly or odd.

This latest dream was actually normal. Actually, it was more than that. It was lucid. And it had a moral message.

Seriously, it was as if this dream was written by a producer of an after-school special.

In the dream, I am the coach for a high school baseball team.

We’re having practice.

I am working with the infielders (hitting them groundballs) while my assistant coaches (I have FOUR assistants, for some reason) are working with the other players in the outfield.

As I’m hitting grounders, my shortstop, who is my best player, keeps making mistakes. These aren’t “I am doing my best” mistakes, they are mistakes from being lazy. He wasn’t getting his body in front of the ball. He wasn’t bending his knees. He was, deliberately, missing the balls.

And when I tried correcting him, giving him pointers on proper technique, he would argue with me. He would complain.

He disrespected me, his coach, in front of the other infielders. One of the infielders, a first baseman, followed his lead and began complaining, too.

I called all the players to gather around the pitching mound for a team meeting.

I asked all but one of my assistant coaches (one I trusted apparently) to give me and the players privacy. One of the other assistants, you see, was the father of the defiant shortstop.

I didn’t hold a meeting so much as I verbally chewed out the shortstop while the rest of the team (and one assistant coach) watched in shock.

I brought the lad to tears. I told him that his behavior would not be tolerated. I told him he would be immediately cut from the team unless he apologized to me right then, apologized to his teammates for the way he acted, and promised he would never be defiant again.

Sobbing, the player did as I asked.

Then I added an addendum. I told him I was now going to walk over to his father, my assistant coach, and tell him precisely what he had done. And that unless his father agreed to support me, to hold him accountable, he would still be cut from the team and his father would be removed from his duties as assistant coach.

The dream ended with me walking over to speak with the father.

The dream is a variation of a real-life incident I encountered with a father of one of my players when I was the head coach for a junior varsity baseball team. I previously wrote about it in my Generation: Enable blog post two years ago.

Our exchange went down like so:

“A word coach,” a parent asks me.

“This really isn’t a good time,” I respond. “We’re about to start the second game (of the double header).”

“I hear you aren’t starting (my son). Is that true?”

“Yes, that’s true,” I reply.

“Can I ask why,” the parent barked at me.

“You already know why. He didn’t hustle. He forgot how many outs there were. Then he didn’t hustle again.”

“This is completely ridiculous,” the parent complained. “He’s your best player. This is why we get our butts kicked. I’m trying to recruit players from other teams to come to this school, but it’s impossible with (crap) like this.”

“You’re right,” I respond. “It is ridiculous. It’s ridiculous that your son didn’t hustle, but instead of supporting me and telling your son to hustle you’re attacking me. Quite frankly, if these players you’re trying to recruit exert the same amount of effort on the field as your son did today, I don’t want them.”

“The A. D. (Athletic Director) will hear about this,” the parent threatened.

“What are you going to tell him? That I treat all my players the same, no matter how good they are? That I expect my players to hustle and give 100%? Go ahead, he might give me a raise.”

I’m curious as to why this dream popped into my head. I haven’t coached a team in over four years now.

Of course, then again I’ve never had an ex-girlfriend try to run me off the road with a semi-truck, but that didn’t stop my brain from dreaming about that…

Have any of you had odd dreams lately? Care to share them with the class?