Our dreams feel real while we’re in them. It’s only when we wake we realize things were strange. – Cobb, in the movie “Inception.”
Everyone dreams. Some more than others, some only when they are stressed or under a lot of pressure. Other times we dream for no reason at all, a nonsensical journey through time and space, places we’ve never been and places we might one day go. We remember some dreams, others lost to the deepest reaches of our mind.
But we all have dreams about our lives, every so often the worries or excitements make their way into our subconscious and there we are standing naked in the classroom without our homework. Or maybe we’re reliving a great moment that happened long ago. There is a connection between what we dream, and what we live.
In the spirit of football season it does bring up an interesting question to those who might let their mind wander into strange curious places. Do football players dream about football? Do coaches dream about football?
“So I’ve got one game left and and usually we’re playing – I think it’s a Slippery Rock game and they named me the starter because my career went up and down so I started some and didn’t others – so this was my game,” Penn State offensive coordinator Mike Yurcich said earlier this summer. “And sometimes I’m warming up on the sideline feeling really good. And sometimes I’m in the frickin car stuck in traffic and I’m late to the game. So that’s that’s the two recurring dreams I have about football.”
Everyone has that fear about failure, but sometimes you only dream about success. Take for instance kicker Jake Pinegar, who simply states the only kind of football dreams he really remembers.
“I’ve probably dreamed about making [field goals,”] Pinegar says.
Others only have bad dreams, the kind when all of your greatest fears begin to manifest themselves into one horrible moment. It’s not so much that anything bad is happening in these dreams, but it’s living out the things you fear about failure. That you really aren’t that good at football, that you’ll drop a pass, that you simply aren’t that fast. Imagine that, playing the game you love only to realize that you’re not that good. A fear we all face, that we will fall short.
“I hate to have football dreams,” receiver Parker Washington said with a laugh. “Because every time I have a football dream, I’m the worst player on the field. Every time I’ve had a dream about football has been the worst, the slowest man on the field.”
Cornerback’s coach Terry Smith is a good example of both, dreaming about the days gone by and the days ahead. But he’s also a great example of how much stress and the moment can impact what comes through our mind when we close our eyes, because Smith? Well he only dreams about football when it’s football season.
“We all dream, the perfect game or in search of what has never happened,” Smith said. “Man it’s like dreaming about the lottery. You know, that million dollars. I dreamed about that and I didn’t even buy a ticket. It’s usually the opponent that’s in front of you. During the offseason I don’t dream about football. It’s only in the week of games.”
Or in the case of running back’s coach Ja’Juan Seider he has had to learn how to turn off his brain, otherwise he’ll never sleep.
“When I would play – I literally went to sleep dreaming about how I was going play the game. My mind, I couldn’t shut off football. I didn’t sleep well because I was forecasting how the game was gonna go and how I was going to play and I still do it now as a coach.”
As for quarterback Sean Clifford, it’s hard not to blame him for dreaming about football. It has become his life and for better or worse so many of his decisions and throws have been at the center of so many wins and losses. If there was ever a person to feel the stress of the moment and the joy of victory it would be Clifford, a mind riddled with football memories. He dreams of the moments that have happened, and the ones that are maybe still to come.
“I do,” Clifford said when asked if he dreams about football. “How could you not?”
