Mason Haydock went to Austin hopeful for a win, he left a hero to all KU fans
Mason Haydock was somewhere around San Angelo, Texas when his phone began blowing up. He just couldn’t quite figure out what all the messages meant.
Aching from a weekend of golf, beer and KU football with friends in Austin, Haydock was well into the seven-and-a-half hour drive home to Carlsbad, New Mexico and had reached the part of west Texas where cell reception was intermittent at best.
The 22-year-old accountant certainly wasn’t getting any images to download or apps to open. So it’s hard to blame him for panicking a bit when texts came through in bunches mentioning him going viral.
“I called my mom,” Haydock told For The Win. “I was like, ‘Hey, can you get on Twitter and make sure I didn’t do anything stupid enough to look like an idiot,’ you know?”
Instead he found himself the subject of a delightful and hilarious thread detailing the emotional rollercoaster that was the Jayhawks’ 57-56 overtime victory at Texas.
It was all starting to make sense.
Haydock recalled a Texas fan sitting behind him taking photos during the win. At the time he thought it was a vindictive move to get him kicked out of the game. On Sunday he learned the photographer was Austin radio host Jason Dick, and the photos were for a much wider audience than stadium security.
“I’m usually not a big [expletive]-talker, but I was feeling pretty good,” Haydock said of his actions in the stands. “And we hadn’t won in ages so I probably opened my mouth more than usual and was catching quite a bit of flack.”
The recent KU grad trash-talking and then some.
Haydock went to every home game during his junior and senior years in Lawrence. Before that, the Kansas native was playing college baseball in Oklahoma but would drive home on weekends to grab a seat at Memorial Stadium. All to watch a team that had put together an 11-68 record from 2015-2020.
Head coaches Turner Gill, Charlie Weis and David Beaty all came and went while Haydock remained glued to his seat. Saturday helped make it worth it.
As Kansas took a 35-14 lead into halftime, Haydock found other KU fans on the concourse of Darrell K Royal Stadium to revel in the excitement — a pair of which happened to be the parents of freshman walk-on Jared Casey.
Casey’s parents were beaming, telling Haydock how they made the trip to watch their son play in his first game. At the end of overtime, Haydock could hear the two screaming a few rows behind him as Casey hauled in a game-winning two-point conversion.
None of the Kansas fans in attendance were ready to leave the stadium, Haydock included. They stuck around to grace Longhorns fans with an “S-E-C” chant and mingled amongst themselves as players began emerging from the locker room. Haydock had a chance to catch up with the family of KU quarterback Jalon Daniels before heading back out to the bars in Austin to celebrate.
All the while Twitter was devouring the photos of Haydock. It wasn’t long before they made their way to KU Athletics, where Assistant Athletic Director Collin Sexton took notice.
Even Haydock’s favorite player from his time as a student, former QB Carter Stanley, saw the photos and eventually got in touch with the fan.
By the time Haydock made it back to New Mexico, the school was putting together a swag bag of all new gear to send out to him. In the meantime, there were more pressing issues to consider.
Kansas plays at TCU this weekend. A bit shorter of a drive from Carlsbad, but a slog nonetheless — especially after a debauchery-filled, three-day weekend in Austin. Still recovering from a win over Texas, Haydock was already feeling the pressure to make it Fort Worth.
“I’ve put a lot of thought into this,” Haydock said. “This one on on Saturday kind of makes you want to come back. It’s about another six hour drive. I actually have a couple friends that are going to be there as well. So yeah, I’ve thought about it, but we’ll kind of see how work goes this week.”
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