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Emily Mason gave her mother this year's Mother's Day present a little early.
On April 23, Emily scored two goals in a college lacrosse game, the kind of accomplishment that would make any mother proud. And her mother, Chris Mason, was right there to see it happen.
Only problem was, Emily's two goals helped lead her team, Connecticut College, to a two-goal victory over the Williams College team coached by ... Chris Mason.
Perhaps Mom should have tried a gift registry. But strange as it sounds, there was no more fitting way for Emily to honor her mother, whom the younger Mason credits with making her athletic career possible.
"I think that she takes on so much and does so much more than is humanly possible, I think, for most people," Mason said this week. "She's just done everything for my brother, my sisters and myself.
"Without her, I don't think I would have been able to play college lacrosse. Because she had a big hand in creating the (Mt. Greylock Regional High School) program, it allowed me to play."
'We can do this'
When Emily and her twin sister, Carly, were coming up through elementary school in Williamstown, there was no high school lacrosse team
Chris Mason, who has coached lacrosse and field hockey at Williams for more than two decades, wanted to see at least one of her sports get a foothold in the youth ranks.
"My two sports (as a player) at Penn State were field hockey and lacrosse," Chris Mason said. "They did away with field hockey in the county soon after I came here, and there never was any lacrosse.
"My kids would go to camps with me in the summer all the time. They grew up going to camps with me and (longtime Williams men's lacrosse coach) Renzie Lamb."
Chris Mason said she was overwhelmed when she thought about the idea of starting a high school program the season of which would overlap with one of her Williams teams.
But she soon found she would not be going it alone.
"There were quite a few of us who got it started at Greylock," she said. "Andy and Sue Kelly of Pittsfield, Sue Ellen Solomon, Sue Wells, Sue O'Riley and Barb Kourajian to name a few.
"Through elementary school, I thought, 'I have to get something started for my girls.' But I found it very hard when my kids were little. It seemed like such a big undertaking. But once you talk to people, it's like, 'Oh, we're together, we can do this.'
"Even now, we still have so many people helping out."
But as Mt. Greylock's high school varsity team competes in its eighth season this spring, it still has the same head coach it had day one: Chris Mason.
Occasionally, scheduling conflicts make it impossible for her to make every practice, or even every game, for the high school squad. But Chris Mason said she always has been blessed with a strong group of assistant coaches, including Dawn Payton, Julianne Austin, Leslie Mahar, Ashley Ransom and Caitlin Wells.
"It can be so time consuming if you're doing everything yourself," Mason said.
Mt. Greylock's girls and boys lacrosse teams are technically club sports. No Berkshire County public high schools currently offer lacrosse as a varsity program. But that distinction has not affected the sport's popularity at the school.
"Since we started it, we've had enough to field a jayvee and a varsity, which we now call the middle school and high school teams," Chris Mason said.
"No. 1, there were girls who were exposed to it either at Pine Cobble or any of the private schools in the area that had it who ended up back at the high school. ... Then you had some athletic girls who said, 'I like the continuous transition sports like soccer or field hockey,' and didn't have that kind of option at the high school in the spring.
"It also attracted a group of people who hadn't been playing any sport before."
'A positive coach'
The last description certainly did not apply to Emily or Carly Mason or their brother Clint, currently playing for the Mt. Greylock boys, or little sister Siri, now with the Mt. Greylock girls.
Sports always were part of life in the Mason home, where Mom and Dad were both full-time coaches (Patch Mason coached the Williams women's hockey team for five years in the '90s).
And playing for Mom or Dad was just as natural as playing sports at all, Emily Mason said.
"It was always normal for me," she said. "Mom and Dad always coached teams me and my brother and sisters were on since we were very young. They always made sure we knew that when we were on a team that they coached, we weren't going to get any special treatment."
At least, they were not going to be treated any easier than the other players. There were no guarantees they would not be treated any harder.
"Once in a while, that happened," Emily said. "But it was never anything absurd. It was just a matter of expecting us to know better in certain situations."
Chris Mason said it is different coaching your own child, but her coaching style helped her keep an even keel.
"It's challenging at times," she said. "It depends on what mood I'm in or what mood they're in. Because I know my kids so well, I know what they're capable of.
"I tend to be more of a positive coach than a negative coach anyway. I don't see the point of screaming at people."
Whatever the Masons are doing, it has paid off.
Emily was a junior captain on the Connecticut College women's hockey team last winter and a 21-goal scorer for the women's lacrosse team this spring.
Carly played one year of college hockey at Lake Forest College in Illinois before opting to devote more time to her studies.
Clint was a captain on Mt. Greylock's soccer and basketball teams this year and is bound for Babson College in the fall.
Of the three, Emily is the one most familiar to fans of Mom's Williams women's lacrosse team - especially those fans who have conflicted loyalties when the Ephs and Camels hook up in the spring.
Two years ago, that match was on Williams' Renzie Lamb Field.
"All of our relatives were on the other side of the field rooting for Emily," Chris Mason said. "But it was weird because they were kind of cheering for both teams, so that was kind of funny.
"Apparently at one point my brother-in-law yelled, 'Hey, Emily, we didn't come here to see you pass the ball. Go to the goal.'
"She scored the 11th and 12th goals."
And Connecticut College won, 12-10 - another of those early Mother's Day gifts that some mothers would just as soon forget.
"Afterward, (assistant coach) Alix (Rorke) said to me, 'Maybe it's because I baby-sat for your kids when they were little, but I'm a little excited for Emily,'" Chris Mason recalled. "I said, 'I'm a little excited, too, but I'm bummed for our team.'
"If someone had to score the winning goal, I'd rather it be her."
