SOUTH WHITLEY - After today, barring a catastrophe, senior Tim Mason will turn in the greatest season ever by a Whitko track and field athlete.

He competes in the 100- and 200-meter runs and the long jump. He has finished below first place in those three events exactly zero times this season. Regular season meets, the Goshen Relays, the Three Rivers Conference meet, the Plymouth Sectional. Undefeated.

Then he says this: "I don't like to run. It's boring."

Unless ... unless he sees a water moccasin.

Memorial Day weekend. Mason, Jimmy Linn, Ray Smith and other Whitko cronies gathered at Linn's pond, where they swim and fish. And every once in a while, one of those dratted water moccasins slithers across the surface of the water.

"I told Coach (Ron) Cherry after the three-day weekend, 'I bet you think I haven't done any running,'" Mason says. "He asks, 'Have you?' I said, 'Yeah, I went fishing. I ran halfway across the pond to kill a water moccasin.'"

Mason's water moccasin kill total is at six.

"We gotta get them outta there," Mason says. "We like to swim in there. We'll be fishing, then they'll come swimming right up by the shore. We'll yell 'Snake!' Then somebody comes running with a shovel. We chop it up. One time one started going back out. Ray Smith threw his hook out there and reeled it in.

"They're poisonous, but it would take a lot of bitin' to get you dead."

Mason wears white shorts and a light blue Banana Republic T-shirt that matches the color of his eyes. A gold Nike chain dangles around his neck. His head is shaved. Not Indiana Pacers shaved, but shaved nonetheless.

If the first thing you should know about Mason is that he will go down as one of the greatest track and field athletes ever at Whitko, the second thing you should know is this is a guy who calls himself "squirrelly."

"I used to be pretty squirrelly," he says. "I'm still squirrelly, I guess. I like to have fun. I like to see everyone around me have fun."

The catch phrase hounding Mason throughout his high school career has been mental maturity. Ask Cherry about Mason, he talks mental maturity.

The difference in Mason this year is he knows when to have fun.

"I know there's a time to screw around," he says. "And I know there's a time to be serious and get it done."

He is blessed with talent that only few are ever given.

"The really good sprinters are born fast," Cherry says.

By the end of his freshman year in high school, Mason was Whitko's second-best sprinter. At the start of his sophomore year - and ever since - he has been Whitko's best sprinter.

Mason also possesses the desire to kick the other guy's butt.

"I was talking with the Northfield coaches at the sectional," Cherry says. "One made the remark that he doesn't see as many kids now who have a real burning desire to win. I would agree with that. Tim is the exception to the rule.

"He has the burning desire to succeed, or die trying."

Then Cherry goes back a couple weeks to the Kelly Relays. Whitko had a bad exchange, so the Wildcat relay team was sitting third when Mason, running last, got the baton. By the time he reached the curve, he caught the two runners ahead of him. Whitko finished first.

Mason is, as the saying goes, an enigma wrapped in a riddle. Mason has always had talent and drive, but he's also been the kind of kid who makes coaches mutter words like "knucklehead" under their breath. The physical tools have always been there. But the mental focus often lagged behind.

Mason tells you when he first began to take weight lifting - and for that matter, track and field - seriously: between his junior and senior years in high school.

"Up until then," Mason says, "I was just along for the ride."

Mason liked sports in middle school, but he saw himself as nothing special. "I didn't even think about it," he says.

Same thing early in high school.

"My freshman year I was surprised I could compete," he says. "I never thought it would go far."

What Mason has discovered is that he's not along for the ride. He makes the ride go.

"In terms of mental and emotional maturity, he's taken a step this year from last year," Cherry says. Mason led Whitko to the first place in the Kelly Relays this year. Cherry is not sure Mason would have had the mental toughness to lead the Wildcats to first last year.

Still, Mason advanced to the state meet in the long jump last season. He placed 10th with a jump of 21-feet, 7-1/4 inches.

"Now I have a lot more focus on what I want to do," he tells you.

With focus, Mason should break Dick Cole's record this evening at the Kokomo Regional. Cole holds the Whitko record for most points in a season, 217, by one Whitko track athlete.

Mason enters the regional at 206.5. First places are worth 10 points and second places eight, so Mason figures to blow by Cole.

Mason is the top seed in the long jump and 100. He's the second seed in the 200, .02 seconds behind the first seed.

"I hate to jinx the guy, because he hasn't lost all year in the long jump, 100 and 200," Cherry says. "He'll see some heat today. The odds are good he'll get to state in all three, but he still has to go out and do it."

At the sectional, Mason obliterated the competition. His time of 11.05 seconds in the 100 was almost a half-second in front of everyone else. His time of 22.60 seconds in the 200 was nearly a full second ahead of everyone else. And his long jump of 22-feet, 3-inches was nearly a foot better than everyone else.

"I don't want to sound like I'm bragging, but I really haven't been pushed," Mason says. "I'm hoping when I do get pushed, I don't fall apart. I'm hoping, you know?"

Cherry knows. Two years ago, maybe Mason falls apart. Not this year.

"The few times he's been in a big meet, he has responded well," Cherry says.

Arguably Whitko's most competitive meet during the regular season was the Goshen Relays. Mason responded with the best long jump and 100 time of his career. He long jumped 22-feet, 11 3/4-inches, which is one of the state's 10 best this season. He ran the 100 in 10.88 seconds. Cherry knows of only one runner in the northern part of the state who has a better time.

"The Goshen Relays is a big meet with a lot of competitors and a lot of fans," Cherry says. "And that's when he did his best. Since then, he hasn't quite been to that point. But he's coming."

Soon Mason will be going, off to college, maybe the University of Indianapolis or Indiana University or Tri-State. After he picks, he plans to continue his track and field career. So talented is Mason, Indiana is talking scholarship money.

"I think I have the potential to be best in the long jump," Mason says. "Hopefully I have the potential to go a lot farther with it in college. That's what I'm told, anyway.

"Some of the coaches have talked to me about triple jump. I've never done it before, but they said as long as my strides are, I could be a good triple jumper."

The same Tim Mason who acknowledges that only before his senior year did he take weight lifting and track and field seriously now talks of college.

Cherry is not surprised. Mental maturity, he said.

Then you see evidence of the maturity. You ask Mason what he's most proud of. He says the Whitko team, a team that went 10-0 and won its first Three Rivers Conference title since 1983.

"Most proud of?" he says. "For me individually? I don't know. I'm really proud of our team. There's been more support for our team. We yell for each other. It's nice to have." [[In-content Ad]]