Highly recruited high school athletes no longer just emerge from the playground. They are created over a years-long process involving a tremendous amount of time and money from their parents.
Oswego East guard Mason Lockett signed his scholarship to DePaul on Wednesday in the school’s community center surrounded by teammates, family and friends. The path to that point was tougher than for most high school seniors.
Lockett needed all the usual parental support, along with an inner tenacity and will to come back from a serious injury that wiped out his seventh and eighth grade seasons.
Lockett wasn’t a junior high basketball star. He spent those years dealing with knee surgery. His parents had already invested heavily in Lockett’s basketball career at that point, but were uncertain about his future.
“We had been really supporting him since grammar school, thinking [a scholarship] was a possibility,” Lisa Lockett, Mason’s mother, said. “That was hard, sending your seventh grader into surgery. I didn’t know if he was going to be that person afterwards.”
Lockett couldn’t run or jump and had to relearn how to walk after the surgery.
“At that point I didn’t think I would ever make it [to a scholarship],” Lockett said. “I thought I’d just be playing basketball for fun.”
Lisa Lockett learned a lot about her son during the injury rehab.
“He has a huge work ethic and resilience,” Lisa Lockett said. “The work he put in and the love for basketball shined through. By the time he got to freshman year, I knew he was going to be something special. He had already been through something.”
Lockett started on varsity as a sophomore and blew up on the summer circuit. The prep schools came in with offers, but Lockett chose to stay at Oswego East. He talks about that decision the same way he talks about picking DePaul.
“I want to be the hometown hero,” Lockett said. “I always told my dad that. I want to play where I’m from.”
That didn’t have to mean DePaul. Lockett, now 6-5, had offers from 16 colleges, including Loyola.
“After he met [DePaul coach Chris Holtmann] he was locked in,” Mason’s dad, Mason Locket III, said. “He came down to breakfast at the hotel the next day and told me it had to be DePaul.”
Oswego East doesn’t have a lofty reputation as a basketball powerhouse, but coach Ryan Velasquez’s program is much better than many realize. The Wolves are a consistent presence in the Super 25 rankings and Lockett is the fifth Division I player the school has produced in its 20 years. Indiana Pacers guard RayJ Dennis graduated from Oswego East in 2019.
“Mason is a great young man,” Velasquez said. “It’s been a pleasure to coach him. DePaul is getting a really good player.”
Lockett missed half of last season with an injury, so he still has a low profile on the local scene. That should change over the next few months.
“I’ve lived here my whole life, and this community is a family,” Lockett said. “That’s one of the reasons I didn’t go to prep school. I want to play in front of everybody and showcase what they missed last year.”
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