Bret Bielema reflects on longtime Wisconsin coach Henry Mason's legacy

MADISON – Bret Bielema experienced “one of my most gratifying moments” in Madison long after he coached his last game for the Wisconsin Badgers.

While Bielema was in his two-year stint with the New England Patriots, he came back to attend the Badgers’ pro day and saw his former wide receivers coach, Henry Mason.

“The time that we shared there together in his office – we got a chance for about an hour to be alone, just he and I,” Bielema said. “We had a lot of great memories on the field, but a lot of great moments off the field as well, and I think that’s the part that you really take with you.”

Bielema and others’ memories of the longtime UW assistant coach are back in the spotlight following Mason’s death on April 10. He was 69 years old, according to his obituary.

Mason, Bielema said, was someone who “can walk in the room and have a great presence, and he doesn’t have to say anything.”

“The amount of high school coaches that had a relationship with him was unbelievable,” Bielema said in a phone call with the Journal Sentinel. “I remember walking into high schools with him as a head coach, and he knew how to enter the high school from the back door, through the secret entrance that very, very few others got to use.”

Bielema, now approaching his sixth season as head coach at Illinois, first worked together with Mason when Mason was UW’s wide receivers coach and Bielema arrived as defensive coordinator in 2004.

Even before Bielema arrived in Madison, he knew from afar that Mason was a “premier recruiter.”

“He’s an ambidextrous person,” Bielema said. “He can speak to all groups, all ages, all backgrounds, all parts of the country. He was just a really, really good, relatable person. I think people recognized immediately his genuineness, his sincereness, and he has the ability to make you feel special.”

When Bielema got the head coaching job, replacing Barry Alvarez, he tried retaining three assistant coaches from Alvarez’s final staff (and was successful with two of them).

Paul Chryst was one. He tried getting Jim Hueber, who ultimately went to the Minnesota Vikings. The other was Mason.

“I believe it was after my first year, he’d done such a great job – we went 12-1 – I believe some schools came after him,” Bielema said. “And that’s when I promoted him and gave him a position to become kind of like my associate head coach. He really helped me with several things beyond the game of football.”

ORLANDO, FL - JANUARY 2: Assistant coach Henry Mason of the Wisconsin Badgers watches the game against the Auburn Tigers on January 2, 2006 at the Capital One Bowl in Orlando, Florida. The Badgers beat the Tigers 24-10. (Photo by David Stluka/Getty Images) *** Local Caption *** Henry Mason ORG XMIT: 56494205

Mason suffered an injury in 2007 that prevented him from coaching, but he continued to work (and make an impact) as a member of UW’s support staff for more than a decade after that and was a liaison with NFL teams, high school coaches and others.

“I had several coaches reach out to me after the news of his passing that I knew maybe, but I didn’t know he was connected through them,” Bielema said. “Several coaches reached out to me about, ‘Hey, he was one of my true mentors growing up.’”

There has been an outpouring of support that extends well beyond the Illini’s Bielema, who posted his own tribute.

UW alum Antonio Fenelus, now the defensive backs coach at Florida Atlantic, thanked Mason in a tweet for being an “amazing coach, leader and mentor.” Fellow alum Aaron Henry, the defensive backs coach at Notre Dame, highlighted Mason’s “real conversations and the impact you had on me as a player.”

UW men’s basketball coach Greg Gard’s last tweet or retweet was nearly two years ago, but he broke his social media silence to pay tribute to Mason and say that “heaven’s wide-outs got better today.”

“Henry was one of the few remaining ‘real ones’ in our profession,” Gard said in a tweet. “Always knew who I was, where I'd been recruiting, and offering to help every step of the way. I've always judged people by how they treat others and he was as good as they come when it came to valuing & respecting people.”

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Former Wisconsin coach reflects on Henry Mason's legacy with Badgers