duncan228
09-03-2009, 02:22 PM
Spurred on to Service: The Roger Mason Story (http://www.frcblog.com/2009/09/spurred-on-to-service-the-roger-mason-story/)
by Robert Morrison
Here’s a story we need to see. Roger Mason, Jr., a star shooting guard for the San Antonio Spurs, is shown in the Washington Times recently giving high fives to a group of boys at E.L. Haynes Public Charter School in Northwest D.C. Mason formerly played for the Washington Wizards, but left to join the Spurs last summer.
Despite moving more than a thousand miles away, Roger Mason has not forgotten his roots. His Roger Mason Foundation is a partner with the local charter school, and Roger is playing a part in the lives of area children. Fifty local students will attend “Movie Night with Mase” this week. They were selected on the basis of essays they wrote. Many of the kids wrote about Roger Mason and how he is an inspirational figure to them. “That means more to me than anything,” Mason told The Washington Times’ sports writer, Tom Knott, “that’s the cool part. That’s the type of thing that’s special to me.”
I am especially grateful to Tom Knott for giving us this wonderful story. Too often, the media highlight the lurid, the weird, the criminal. But Roger Mason is not just “quiet, steady, dependable Mason, the guy behind the guy but ever capable.” Roger is a star.
Roger Mason was a classmate of my children. He graduated from Calvary Lutheran School in Silver Spring, Maryland in the ’90s. He was a standout athlete—even in fourth grade! And he was quiet, modest and “ever capable,” even then.
Calvary Lutheran did beautiful things. All 123 children in that school read on grade level.
That is something few schools can boast. Teachers at Calvary had to teach for twenty-three years before they earned as much as an entry-level teacher in Montgomery County Public Schools. The amazing thing is that we had four teachers who were at that level.
I sometimes get ribbed by liberal friends about sending my children to Christian schools.
Oh, joining the “white flight,” eh? Well, we did join the white—and black—flight to Calvary, where 85 percent of the students were minority students. But we didn’t pay attention to that back then. Instead, we were drawn to those words engraved in stone above the entrance to Calvary: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”
I thank God for Calvary Lutheran School, what it has meant to my family, and what it meant to Roger Mason. He continues to bless this community, San Antonio, and any other community that is fortunate enough to know him. Oh, and E.L. Haynes Public Charter School? It’s right down the street from Calvary.
*********************
The Washington Times Story:
Mason Staying Close To His Foundation
http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=134037
by Robert Morrison
Here’s a story we need to see. Roger Mason, Jr., a star shooting guard for the San Antonio Spurs, is shown in the Washington Times recently giving high fives to a group of boys at E.L. Haynes Public Charter School in Northwest D.C. Mason formerly played for the Washington Wizards, but left to join the Spurs last summer.
Despite moving more than a thousand miles away, Roger Mason has not forgotten his roots. His Roger Mason Foundation is a partner with the local charter school, and Roger is playing a part in the lives of area children. Fifty local students will attend “Movie Night with Mase” this week. They were selected on the basis of essays they wrote. Many of the kids wrote about Roger Mason and how he is an inspirational figure to them. “That means more to me than anything,” Mason told The Washington Times’ sports writer, Tom Knott, “that’s the cool part. That’s the type of thing that’s special to me.”
I am especially grateful to Tom Knott for giving us this wonderful story. Too often, the media highlight the lurid, the weird, the criminal. But Roger Mason is not just “quiet, steady, dependable Mason, the guy behind the guy but ever capable.” Roger is a star.
Roger Mason was a classmate of my children. He graduated from Calvary Lutheran School in Silver Spring, Maryland in the ’90s. He was a standout athlete—even in fourth grade! And he was quiet, modest and “ever capable,” even then.
Calvary Lutheran did beautiful things. All 123 children in that school read on grade level.
That is something few schools can boast. Teachers at Calvary had to teach for twenty-three years before they earned as much as an entry-level teacher in Montgomery County Public Schools. The amazing thing is that we had four teachers who were at that level.
I sometimes get ribbed by liberal friends about sending my children to Christian schools.
Oh, joining the “white flight,” eh? Well, we did join the white—and black—flight to Calvary, where 85 percent of the students were minority students. But we didn’t pay attention to that back then. Instead, we were drawn to those words engraved in stone above the entrance to Calvary: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”
I thank God for Calvary Lutheran School, what it has meant to my family, and what it meant to Roger Mason. He continues to bless this community, San Antonio, and any other community that is fortunate enough to know him. Oh, and E.L. Haynes Public Charter School? It’s right down the street from Calvary.
*********************
The Washington Times Story:
Mason Staying Close To His Foundation
http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=134037