Charles Mason: "I want to win our first national title"
Mount Saint Joseph University had four wrestlers on its roster before Charles Mason arrived. Multiple All-Americans, an individual national champion and a roster now at 45 have changed things.
It’s June, so Charles Mason finds himself in his ironically-dubbed “off” season. He attends meetings, keeps tabs on recruits, runs workouts, individually trains 25 local wrestlers per week, serves on committees, oversees the Cincinnati Regional Training Center (RTC) and mops mats.
“You allowed to get away for a bit?” I asked. “A little vacation?”
“I’m allowed,” Mason said. “But I don’t go anywhere. I like staying in town and handling business. Don’t need to go on vacation. I relax when I’m at home.”
Mason is the wrestling coach at Mount Saint Joseph University, an NCAA Division III school nestled in the corner of Delhi, OH, a western suburb of Cincinnati. In its 30 years of fielding a team, the Mount has had nine head coaches - an average of three-point-something years per tenure. The year before he was hired, MSJU’s program was on life-support, having finished the season with only four wrestlers.
Mason took over. He was named the 2018-19 National Rookie Coach of the Year. He’s coached multiple All-Americans, including MSJU’s first national champion, Cornell Beachem. In 2020, he added the NWCA Division III Central Region Coach of the Year award to his office trophy shelf.
The 2024-25 season will be Mason’s seventh with the Lions. He’s grown his roster to its current status of 45.
“What’s kept you here?” I asked.
“The guys I coach, the support I get, the Mount itself,” he said. “This place is home. And I want to win our first (team) national title.”
***
Mason grew up in Bond Hill, just north of Cincinnati, a community not unfamiliar with crime, poverty and despair.
His mother, Linda Crawford, was the soft place to fall for her children when she discerned tenderness and grace were most needed. She wasn’t shy, however, about distributing disciplinary lessons when needed.
The lessons weren’t reserved for Crawford’s children only.
“I’ve seen my mom whoop kids from the neighborhood for fighting,” Mason said. “Or if she heard they’d stolen from a store, she’d call them over and she’d whoop them in front of everybody.”
He recalls being “around nine,” playing next door with some friends, fascinated by how quickly gasoline-soaked cotton balls caught fire.
“We’d found a gas can,” he said. “Eventually, one of the older kids - maybe 13 or so - lit something, tried to stomp it out, and his whole shoe caught on fire.
“He freaked out, people were screaming. My mom came out, calm as could be, got some water and put out the fire.
“Then she took him in the house and whooped him.”
“You don’t hear of that happening anymore,” I said. “Adults disciplining kids other than their own.”
“It’d save a lot of lives,” Mason said.
Tough love wasn’t the only type Mason’s mother doled out, making 1401 Franklin Avenue home or temporary haven for all.
“Our house basically became a community home,” Mason said. “Mom was kind of like that spiritual person of the neighborhood, always going to church, always helping others. When our friends didn’t have a lot of food at their place, or something happened with their living situation, Mom had people eat with us and sometimes even stay with us for a while. A lot of times, we had friends living with us.
“I’ve never seen my mom drink. I’ve never heard my mom cuss. Raising us with church, helping others and just doing the right things, that’s what was most important to her.”
***
Like most, Mason remembers the year and circumstances surrounding his entrance into wrestling. Also like most, it involved the sport of basketball.
Uniquely, in Mason’s case, the hoops part of his story doesn’t involve being cut and deciding to give wrestling a try.
“I was in seventh grade,” he said. “All my friends were trying out for basketball and I stayed after school just to watch tryouts. I ended up taking a little break and walking the halls. I heard music coming from this one room.”
Curious, Mason opened the wrestling room’s door, not knowing the nation-wide practice of middle school coaches swarming souls that stumble into their practice rooms, even if accidentally.
“Coach saw me at the door and had me come in,” Mason said. “He talked to me, and that’s pretty much how it all began.”
A varsity starter for four years at Princeton High School, Mason qualified for the state tournament twice, placing fourth in 2010. After high school, he attended Notre Dame College, in South Euclid, OH, earning two trips to the national championships and enough respect from his coaches and teammates to be named NDC’s team captain in 2014.
After wrapping his competitive career, Mason served as an assistant coach for NDC in 2015, coaching alongside head coach Frank Romano and assistant Anthony Ralph - now an assistant coach at Ohio State.
“What Charles has done (at MSJU) doesn’t surprise me,” Ralph said. “He’s always held himself accountable, always been selfless and hard working. Whenever we had an issue, we’d pull him in and Charles was always great at communicating whatever was needed to the rest of the team.
“The guy is incredible. Charles is my guy.”
***
Linda Crawford is thoughtful, her voice gentle. She welcomes others into her world quietly, genuinely.
“The number one thing I wanted my kids to know was that no life is possible without a strong faith in the Lord,” she said. “I tried to model that for them, and I taught it. The other thing is that I wanted all of my kids to be contributing members of society, to follow laws and be the best version of themselves at all times. I wanted them to treat people the way they wanted to be treated.”
Crawford cited her own upbringing as to why she raised her kids the way she did. It was important to Crawford to have her own kids witness her open-table, open-home policy.
“My mother always taught us that we can’t be hesitant to entertain angels,” she said.
“You never know. You just might be entertaining angels, unaware. I never saw our guests as children who were deprived or less than us. At my house, they were my children, that’s how I looked at it.”
“How proud are you of Charles? I asked.
“The most important thing is character, how a person lives his life, and Charles has made me so proud.
“But, I didn’t do it alone; I stayed on my knees, and the credit is the Lord’s.”
Crawford paused.
“When you do the article, don’t put a lot about me. Charles knows I don’t like this stuff.”
***
A summer training session has ended. Two wrestlers walk off the mat drenched. Mason’s tee is soaked, as well.
“They’re tough,” he said, nodding to the two he’d just worked.
We talked for a bit. Soon, I was on my way.
And Charles Mason grabbed a mop, a bucket of water, and began cleaning his mats.
***
On Tuesday, June 25, 2024 the re-release of The Price of Legacy: Wrestling with a Dynasty, takes place on video-on-demand platforms (Apple iTunes, Google Movies and YouTube Movies).
The documentary film chronicles the story of Perry, Oklahoma, and its nationally recognized, 103 year-old wrestling program. Viewers learn about this small town’s rich history, its salt-of-the-earth citizens and the core values of character, grit and an honest days work. Whether the work is done under a hot, prairie sun, inside the walls of town businesses or in the practice room of the Perry High School wrestling program, The Price of Legacy: Wrestling with a Dynasty, outlines how hometown pride, character and tradition serve as the abiding backbone of its high school wrestling team’s incredible success.
When the documentary was originally released, no two years had gone by - in 59 years - without Perry winning the Oklahoma team state championship, the most successful championship run of any high school, college or professional sports team in U.S. history.
Sponsors:
Barbarian Apparel: www.barbarianapparrel.com
Atlantic Sign Company: www.atlanticsigncompany.com
Feilhauer’s Machine Shop: www.feilhauers.com
Chris Sweigard, Wild Birds Unlimited: www.wbu.com
Shaun Thatcher, State Farm Insurance: www.insuremycity.com
Grove Transportation: www.grovetransportation.com
Professional Motor Services: www.promotorservice.com
Beat the Streets: www.beatthestreets.org (Donated Sponsorship)