I figured that sooner or later somebody would play the "Comet Card".
Folks, let's give the man a chance. What does it matter if he was a NS head coach in the past? I had a relative playing in the NS program during his time there, and from what I saw, he was not given enough time to build the team he could have. I think any coach should get a minimum of three years to produce, especially when coming into a program that's at rock bottom, as NS had been for some time. Even Ralph Jackson (who came in after Mason) had a couple losing seasons before he got things turned around.
As I said, North Stanly was at rock bottom when Coach Mason took the job. He brought about some improvement by his second year, but it wasn't drastic enough or quick enough to suit all the Saturday morning coaches up there. Remember too that NSHS was playing 2A ball at the time, and in addition to playing Albemarle during their heyday, they had conference matchups with Mt. Pleasant, Forest Hills, Piedmont, and Monroe annually. Unless you're a heck of a team, that's four or five L's right out of the gate.
Prior to coming to NS, Coach Mason was an assistant at East Carteret High School in Beaufort. He worked under Donnie Kiefer while he was there. Kiefer is the current head coach at Central Cabarrus. At least once during that time, East Carteret made the eastern 1A finals, and were a playoff team annually That speaks well of his experience as an assistant.