New Writer Introduction: Zach Mason Joins One Foot Down

Hey, OFD community!

I’m Zach Mason, a graduate student at the University of the Incarnate Word (largest Catholic university in the state of Texas) where I play lacrosse and work as a graduate assistant with the athletic department.

I graduated from Texas Tech a few years ago and still write about the Red Raiders for SB Nation’s Viva the Matadors, where I’m the site manager. Though I pull for my alma mater, I always have and always will be a Notre Dame fanatic and surprisingly, though I’ve been in the sports writing biz for 11 odd years, this is the first time I’ll be covering the Irish.

My father, a Bronx native in an Italian, Catholic family, raised me to be a Notre Dame fan. Growing up in the 90s and early 2000s, my formative years were a particularly brutal time to cheer for the Irish, but I avoided external pressures to jump on any number of other bandwagons and remained faithful through the hard times.

And, over the last few years, I think I’ve been rewarded accordingly. Still want a title, though.

In any case, I’m here to write about lacrosse. Before you click out of this page, I want you to know Notre Dame has an excellent program worthy of quality coverage, and I’m going to do everything in my power to make my content as appealing and easy to digest for casual fans and skeptics alike.

I didn’t even know lacrosse existed until high school. Coming from Austin, TX, all anyone cares about is football, basketball and baseball. No one knows what hockey is, let alone lacrosse - in fact, there are zero Division I lacrosse programs in the state of Texas.

But when I started watching it, I realized it’s basically a combination of every sport. It takes the best from basketball, football, soccer, and hockey and mixes it into one fast-paced, team-oriented, physical game. These kids can do some pretty amazing things, and Notre Dame is loaded with high-end talent.

So I encourage you to join me in following this terrific team this spring, and I hope I can provide compelling analysis for you to digest as we finish out the school year. Look for an article in the next week providing a background for this year’s team, some of the key names to follow, and other things to know as we begin the 2019 season.

Hit me on Twitter if you want to connect, and go Irish!