Harvey Mason Jr. | "I Love Watching You Play"
A torn ACL ended Harvey Mason Jr.'s basketball career the way it ends for most people — mid-jump, awkward landing, done. He'd been a Final Four player at Arizona, recruited by seventy schools, and he'd spent his entire life pointed at the NBA. What followed was a year of depression and daytime soap operas in a dorm room, and a small keyboard, which was the only thing that made him feel all right. His girlfriend at the time mentioned that the ad agency she worked at needed music for a brake shop. They paid him seven hundred dollars, and he started driving around Tucson selling jingles to buffets and gyms.
Roughly a decade later he played a song for Clive Davis in a bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel — the same man who had once talked his drummer father into becoming a recording artist. Davis said yes, and eventually put him in a room with Aretha Franklin, who was so annoyed at how hard he pushed her that she wrote Davis a letter saying he was the wrong producer. Then she listened to the mix and sent him flowers.
In this conversation with David Begnaud, Mason talks about coaching Whitney Houston from fifteen minutes into seven hours, and recording her last vocal the day before she died. About Lute Olson, who rode him so hard at Arizona that he took it as proof of disbelief and spent twenty years understanding otherwise. About a father whose faith in him was absolute and whose expectations were heavy enough that the two didn't always feel like different things. And about what he says to his own kids at every game, on purpose: I love watching you play.
Get more stories that remind you the world is still good. Sign up for our free newsletter: https://www.thedogoodcrew.com
Chapters ☀️
ABOUT THIS PODCAST:
The Person Who Believed In Me is hosted by David Begnaud, founder and CEO of Do Good Crew and often called "America's storyteller." In each episode, David sits down with world-class guests to ask one simple question: Who believed in you before the world did? Big names. Honest stories. Relatable takeaways. Different paths — same question.
David is also a CBS News contributor and host of the weekly segment Beg Knows America, which airs every Monday morning.
Host: David Begnaud
Guest: Harvey Mason Jr.
Executive Producer: Olivier Delfosse
Associate Producer: Jonah Johnson
Booker: Sully Bloch
Director of Photography: Foster Parks
Live Production Technician: Joseph Gabay & Will Whitley (Statik Creative)
Director of Social: Mariah Maull
Theme Music: Slipstream
Post-Production: Longwave Digital
CONNECT WITH US:
The Person Who Believed In Me:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/believedpodcast
More description
A torn ACL ended Harvey Mason Jr.'s basketball career the way it ends for most people — mid-jump, awkward landing, done. He'd been a Final Four player at Arizona, recruited by seventy schools, and he'd spent his entire life pointed at the NBA. What followed was a year of depression and daytime soap operas in a dorm room, and a small keyboard, which was the only thing that made him feel all right. His girlfriend at the time mentioned that the ad agency she worked at needed music for a brake shop. They paid him seven hundred dollars, and he started driving around Tucson selling jingles to buffets and gyms.
Roughly a decade later he played a song for Clive Davis in a bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel — the same man who had once talked his drummer father into becoming a recording artist. Davis said yes, and eventually put him in a room with Aretha Franklin, who was so annoyed at how hard he pushed her that she wrote Davis a letter saying he was the wrong producer. Then she listened to the mix and sent him flowers.
In this conversation with David Begnaud, Mason talks about coaching Whitney Houston from fifteen minutes into seven hours, and recording her last vocal the day before she died. About Lute Olson, who rode him so hard at Arizona that he took it as proof of disbelief and spent twenty years understanding otherwise. About a father whose faith in him was absolute and whose expectations were heavy enough that the two didn't always feel like different things. And about what he says to his own kids at every game, on purpose: I love watching you play.
Get more stories that remind you the world is still good. Sign up for our free newsletter: https://www.thedogoodcrew.com
Chapters ☀️
ABOUT THIS PODCAST:
The Person Who Believed In Me is hosted by David Begnaud, founder and CEO of Do Good Crew and often called "America's storyteller." In each episode, David sits down with world-class guests to ask one simple question: Who believed in you before the world did? Big names. Honest stories. Relatable takeaways. Different paths — same question.
David is also a CBS News contributor and host of the weekly segment Beg Knows America, which airs every Monday morning.
Host: David Begnaud
Guest: Harvey Mason Jr.
Executive Producer: Olivier Delfosse
Associate Producer: Jonah Johnson
Booker: Sully Bloch
Director of Photography: Foster Parks
Live Production Technician: Joseph Gabay & Will Whitley (Statik Creative)
Director of Social: Mariah Maull
Theme Music: Slipstream
Post-Production: Longwave Digital
CONNECT WITH US:
The Person Who Believed In Me:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/believedpodcast
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