http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/05/26/1085461830620.html
Mason a scapegoat for league's troubles By Miranda Devine
May 27, 2004
The whole sordid business of rugby league's sex and booze scandals has come to be embodied by one man: Willie Mason, the 195cm tall, 115kg frizzy-haired forward for the Canterbury Bulldogs team. Despite the talent displayed in last night's State of Origin match, the group-think decision of the rugby league world is that bad boy Bubba is to blame for all that ails the game.
The former Penrith star Mark Geyer gave voice last weekend to the growing anti-Willie lynch mob: "The public are getting sick of a boofhead like him dominating front and back pages for the wrong reasons," he told Channel Nine's The Footy Show.
"Let's get rid of Willie Mason, tomorrow or today, get him out of the team and everything will be kosher. I guarantee it."
:lol: Ray Hadley :lol: , 2GB's influential announcer, also launched into Mason, accusing the 24-year-old of swearing within earshot of children at an autograph-signing last week in Harvey Norman's Liverpool store.
The baying for Mason's blood reached such a pitch the Bulldogs management took the extraordinary decision to disclose private medical advice that he suffers from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. But if the intention was to elicit sympathy for Mason, it backfired. Howls of derision filled letters pages and talkback radio.
Soon every real or imaginary grievance of any league fan was being pinned on Mason and given a wide airing. The criticisms became farcical when league officials had to confiscate and examine the tablecloth from the Harvey Norman autograph table after complaints Mason had doodled on it.
The doodles, said his accusers, were obscene caricatures of men, women and dogs with "oversized genitalia". Even the Harvey Norman boss, Gerry Harvey, got involved in the tablecloth examination, calling in three female staff to ask if they found Willie's doodles offensive. They didn't.
After further examination, a press conference was called to present the tablecloth to the salivating media. And lo and behold, Mason's doodles turned out to be innocent, child-like pictures of a flower in a pot, a little fat man, funny faces, noughts and crosses and stick figures, the kind of doodles you might find on any journalist's pad. The great tablecloth incident was a fizzer.
But it reinforced the impression in the public mind that Mason was a sicko, and a bad influence in the game. This is how a witch-hunt starts. Once the mob has found its target, there is no turning back.
The man once loved by the public for his openness and larrikin nature, unmistakeable because of his huge frame and trademark Afro, had become the whipping boy of league.
Yet the real Mason is quite different from the media caricature. To his mother, Sonya, he is the dutiful third-born child who puts money into her bank account every week to help support his seven brothers and sisters, who range in age from seven to 26. He is the 17-year-old who sat "crying non-stop" in the hospital room where his father died of pancreatic cancer seven years ago.
He is the nine-year-old junior league star who told his proud parents one day he would buy them a house. He is the son who drives his mother to mass, never forgets Mother's Day or her wedding anniversary, and arrives at Christmas and birthdays laden with presents. "I believe a lot of people don't know William or what he's done," said Sonya Mason yesterday before getting on a train near Newcastle to come to Sydney and see the State of Origin.
Part Tongan, Samoan and African-American, Sonya met Willie's Australian father, Ian, in New Zealand where he was soon working two jobs to support his growing family. "It was a struggle bringing up eight kids and Willie remembers that," said Sonya, sitting in the five-bedroom house her son bought her last year.
Sonya has been in tears, worrying about her Bubba. "I know he's not happy," she said yesterday. "I wanted to tell him to just walk out but he told me if he did the public would think he did something wrong."
Of course, a loving mother will always see the best in her son. But on the plain facts it is clear Willie Mason has been unfairly targeted. He was not involved in the most damaging story for rugby league this year: the allegation by a Coffs Harbour woman that she was gang raped by a number of Bulldogs players. The accused players were never named, leaving the whole team under a cloud, especially the high-profile Mason.
Finally the club coach, Steve Folkes, was forced to tell journalists this week: "[Willie] is still being mentioned for being involved in what happened in Coffs Harbour and he was not one of the fined players and he certainly had nothing to do with anything up there but he's still getting labelled with that." Mason's only sin was to dress too casually when he turned up for a police interview with his team-mates. He was fined $10,000 for wearing a T-shirt.
Mason did not make the obscene mobile phone call that convulsed the Origin team last week. He wasn't even in the same cab as the player who did. Mason is no angel. He drinks too much at times and, like a lot of footballers, when he goes out on the town with his team-mates he can behave badly, even uncharacteristically.
In psychology, this phenomenon of behaving differently when in a group is known as de-individuation. The anonymity and loss of a sense of self in a group "reduces an individual's self-restraint and normative regulation of behaviour", says an online paper by Dr Tom Postmes, associate editor of the British Journal of Social Psychology.
But the behaviour of footballers in a group is no more reprehensible than the blood lust of the lynch mob out to get Mason. Footballers are named and shamed, fined and sacked. But the lynch mob rides on unpunished, looking for its next victim.
Well said Miranda. Five days ago I was all for getting rid of Willie, but I now see the media vendetta for what it is. He's not a crim like some people would have you think.
Mason a scapegoat for league's troubles By Miranda Devine
May 27, 2004
The whole sordid business of rugby league's sex and booze scandals has come to be embodied by one man: Willie Mason, the 195cm tall, 115kg frizzy-haired forward for the Canterbury Bulldogs team. Despite the talent displayed in last night's State of Origin match, the group-think decision of the rugby league world is that bad boy Bubba is to blame for all that ails the game.
The former Penrith star Mark Geyer gave voice last weekend to the growing anti-Willie lynch mob: "The public are getting sick of a boofhead like him dominating front and back pages for the wrong reasons," he told Channel Nine's The Footy Show.
"Let's get rid of Willie Mason, tomorrow or today, get him out of the team and everything will be kosher. I guarantee it."
:lol: Ray Hadley :lol: , 2GB's influential announcer, also launched into Mason, accusing the 24-year-old of swearing within earshot of children at an autograph-signing last week in Harvey Norman's Liverpool store.
The baying for Mason's blood reached such a pitch the Bulldogs management took the extraordinary decision to disclose private medical advice that he suffers from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. But if the intention was to elicit sympathy for Mason, it backfired. Howls of derision filled letters pages and talkback radio.
Soon every real or imaginary grievance of any league fan was being pinned on Mason and given a wide airing. The criticisms became farcical when league officials had to confiscate and examine the tablecloth from the Harvey Norman autograph table after complaints Mason had doodled on it.
The doodles, said his accusers, were obscene caricatures of men, women and dogs with "oversized genitalia". Even the Harvey Norman boss, Gerry Harvey, got involved in the tablecloth examination, calling in three female staff to ask if they found Willie's doodles offensive. They didn't.
After further examination, a press conference was called to present the tablecloth to the salivating media. And lo and behold, Mason's doodles turned out to be innocent, child-like pictures of a flower in a pot, a little fat man, funny faces, noughts and crosses and stick figures, the kind of doodles you might find on any journalist's pad. The great tablecloth incident was a fizzer.
But it reinforced the impression in the public mind that Mason was a sicko, and a bad influence in the game. This is how a witch-hunt starts. Once the mob has found its target, there is no turning back.
The man once loved by the public for his openness and larrikin nature, unmistakeable because of his huge frame and trademark Afro, had become the whipping boy of league.
Yet the real Mason is quite different from the media caricature. To his mother, Sonya, he is the dutiful third-born child who puts money into her bank account every week to help support his seven brothers and sisters, who range in age from seven to 26. He is the 17-year-old who sat "crying non-stop" in the hospital room where his father died of pancreatic cancer seven years ago.
He is the nine-year-old junior league star who told his proud parents one day he would buy them a house. He is the son who drives his mother to mass, never forgets Mother's Day or her wedding anniversary, and arrives at Christmas and birthdays laden with presents. "I believe a lot of people don't know William or what he's done," said Sonya Mason yesterday before getting on a train near Newcastle to come to Sydney and see the State of Origin.
Part Tongan, Samoan and African-American, Sonya met Willie's Australian father, Ian, in New Zealand where he was soon working two jobs to support his growing family. "It was a struggle bringing up eight kids and Willie remembers that," said Sonya, sitting in the five-bedroom house her son bought her last year.
Sonya has been in tears, worrying about her Bubba. "I know he's not happy," she said yesterday. "I wanted to tell him to just walk out but he told me if he did the public would think he did something wrong."
Of course, a loving mother will always see the best in her son. But on the plain facts it is clear Willie Mason has been unfairly targeted. He was not involved in the most damaging story for rugby league this year: the allegation by a Coffs Harbour woman that she was gang raped by a number of Bulldogs players. The accused players were never named, leaving the whole team under a cloud, especially the high-profile Mason.
Finally the club coach, Steve Folkes, was forced to tell journalists this week: "[Willie] is still being mentioned for being involved in what happened in Coffs Harbour and he was not one of the fined players and he certainly had nothing to do with anything up there but he's still getting labelled with that." Mason's only sin was to dress too casually when he turned up for a police interview with his team-mates. He was fined $10,000 for wearing a T-shirt.
Mason did not make the obscene mobile phone call that convulsed the Origin team last week. He wasn't even in the same cab as the player who did. Mason is no angel. He drinks too much at times and, like a lot of footballers, when he goes out on the town with his team-mates he can behave badly, even uncharacteristically.
In psychology, this phenomenon of behaving differently when in a group is known as de-individuation. The anonymity and loss of a sense of self in a group "reduces an individual's self-restraint and normative regulation of behaviour", says an online paper by Dr Tom Postmes, associate editor of the British Journal of Social Psychology.
But the behaviour of footballers in a group is no more reprehensible than the blood lust of the lynch mob out to get Mason. Footballers are named and shamed, fined and sacked. But the lynch mob rides on unpunished, looking for its next victim.
Well said Miranda. Five days ago I was all for getting rid of Willie, but I now see the media vendetta for what it is. He's not a crim like some people would have you think.
