Frank Mason III jersey retirement tour begins at Massanutten Military Academy

By Matt Tait     Apr 25, 2017
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His trophy-hauling days may be behind him — for now — but the Frank Mason III jersey retirement circuit is just heating up.

Kansas basketball coach Bill Self last season said it merely would be a matter of time before KU’s national player of the year had his number hanging alongside some of the greatest players in KU history in the rafters of Allen Fieldhouse.

But the Massanutten Military Academy, where Mason played a year of prep school in 2012-13 before coming to Kansas, already has gotten in on the act.

Last Friday, Mason returned to Woodstock, Va., a small town 175 miles northwest of his native Petersburg, Va., for a jersey retirement ceremony.

“It’s a great experience to come back here,” Mason told a WTVR reporter following the event. “So many great things happened over the years for me and this is a place I always try to come back to. I’m very blessed. I used to get emotional about it, but now that I look back on it, it helped me to be more responsible and become more of a man.”

Already hanging high on the wall of the school’s gymnasium was a giant banner of Mason, wearing his white No. 0 Kansas uniform taking a jump shot during a game. Below the photo read: Frank Mason – 2013 Massanutten Alum, 2017 Wooden Player of the Year, 2017 Naismith Player of the Year, 2017 AP Player of the Year.

Those, of course, were the three most prestigious of the 10 national player of the year honors that Mason won following the 2016-17 season in which he led Kansas to a 31-5 record, a 13th consecutive Big 12 regular season title and an Elite Eight appearance while becoming the first player in Big 12 history to finish a season averaging 20-plus points and 5-plus assists per game.

According to a report from WTVR, Massanutten basketball coach Chad Meyers called Mason “the greatest thing to happen to Massanutten basketball,” and Mason and his parents were on hand for a small ceremony in the school’s gym that honored Mason with the jersey retirement, complete with his framed, white, No. 3 Massanutten jersey presented to him.

Mason spoke the crowd, signed autographs and enjoyed a short video recap of his sensational senior season.

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Written By Matt Tait

A native of Colorado, Matt moved to Lawrence in 1988 and has been in town ever since. He graduated from Lawrence High in 1996 and the University of Kansas in 2000 with a degree in Journalism. After covering KU sports for the University Daily Kansan and Rivals.com, Matt joined the World Company (and later Ogden Publications) in 2001 and has held several positions with the paper and KUsports.com in the past 20+ years. He became the Journal-World Sports Editor in 2018. Throughout his career, Matt has won several local and national awards from both the Associated Press Sports Editors and the Kansas Press Association. In 2021, he was named the Kansas Sportswriter of the Year by the National Sports Media Association. Matt lives in Lawrence with his wife, Allison, and two daughters, Kate and Molly. When he's not covering KU sports, he likes to spend his time playing basketball and golf, listening to and writing music and traveling the world with friends and family.