‘The demand has always been there for the girls’: CheckRock founder Lamar Mason creates a girls hoops league

Lamar Mason wrote “CheckRock” at the top page of a notebook, and, on that same page, he scribbled down a list of ideas about creating a platform for kids.

The Wilmington, Del., native always had a passion for working with kids. When he reflected on how to make an impact in his community, starting with the youth, Mason wanted basketball to be a part of it.

“Basketball helped me tremendously growing up,” Mason said. “Where I’m from, you deal with different tragedies … there’s a lot of death, so it kind of kept me out of trouble.”

Mason started to put more effort into creating CheckRock after he was let go from his job in 2014. Now, the organization has grown into a coed high school basketball league with a mission of providing mentorship, while giving kids an opportunity to expand their game.

For the first time, Mason, who founded the league in 2015 for high school boys, created a girls program. From Monday to Friday, CheckRock will have “Girls Run It,” with 12 teams competing against each other. It features a roster of high school players from the Delaware, Philadelphia, and Maryland area, at Chase Fieldhouse in Wilmington.

“The demand has always been there for the girls,” Mason said. “Some of the girls, they don’t play enough basketball, and they want to play a lot of basketball, just like the boys. I feel like it’s always needed, so I always want to give them that type of platform as well, not just to the boys.”

Growing up, Mason never took basketball too seriously, playing pickup most days with kids in his neighborhood. It wasn’t until his 11th grade year at Howard High School of Technology, his passion toward the game increased.

During that summer, Mason spent most days with his team, and they became close friends. Each of them would wake up early in the morning and walk over to the nearby track and run two to three miles together before playing basketball.

“We kind of created that bond over that summer,” Mason said. “We became a family, and I think that’s when I started to take it more seriously, because I’m like, ‘Wow, like, these guys really care about basketball,’ I really found it, like, I’m not just playing for me anymore.”

Mason craved the gym every day because of the connection with his teammates. However, he started to fall behind in school, which led him to miss out on games because of his grades.

Mason went to Delaware Technical Community College after graduating from high school. He wanted to get his academics in order before thinking about getting back into basketball at the JUCO, Division II or III level.

After a year at Del Tech, he transferred to Salem County Community College with plans of playing basketball.

“I ended up playing over there the season of 2007-2008,” Mason said. “I was averaging about 24 to 26 points per game … I started getting recruited again by Division II schools.”

However that same year, Mason had a son at 21 years old. With those new responsibilities, he had to halt his basketball career and find a job to support his family.

Mason moved from job to job, until he realized he wasn’t mentally in a good space. He remembered what brought him happiness — the connection with his high school teammates and the basketball environment.

He came to realize the loss of his job was a blessing in disguise. Mason decided to get back into basketball as a trainer for high school and college athletes, while also pursuing his vision of creating CheckRock.

In 2015, he held his first showcase for CheckRock. Mason invited neighborhood kids and college players he trained to attend the event at Prices Run Park in Wilmington.

“I had so many people from the city come out,” Mason said. “So many people from Philly came out because we had a Philly team down here, and it kind of grew from that. There were only 80 players in the league with eight teams. I had a solid eight that we ran with, and it was like a domino effect, people started hearing about it.”

As the brand grew, the league became more competitive. Mason wanted the league to be like an AAU experience for the high schoolers. In 2019, Mason got a job at Chase Fieldhouse as the lead director and trainer of skill development.

While managing CheckRock, Mason still trains players year round. He’s worked with Denver Nuggets guard Nah’Shon Hyland, Mikey Dixon, a former guard at Idaho, and Seton Hall guard Myles Cale. He’s recently been training with his cousin, Robert Wright, a junior point guard at Neumann Goretti.

During a training session with now-Seton Hall senior point guard Lauren Park-Lane, she asked Mason why he hasn’t started a girls basketball league through CheckRock.

“I’m telling her I’m like, ‘Hey, I want to make it happen, but I gotta find time for it and there has to be a demand for it,’” he said. “I started getting way more attached to girls basketball because I started training a lot more players. And I was like, ‘You know what, it’s time.’”

Once Mason realized there are top female basketball players in the area, he wanted to provide a platform for them to receive more exposure to community members, fans and colleges.

He started to reach out to sponsors, who are the name of each “Girls Run It” team. The sponsors then crafted a list of players. Some of the local players featured on the CheckRock girls teams are Jessie Moses (Lower Merion), Alexa Windish (Archbishop Wood), Aaryn Battle (Camden Catholic), and Courtland Schumacher (Archbishop Carroll)

“The wheels are turning, meaning that girls basketball is definitely going into a whole other direction,” Mason said. “We want to make it enjoyable where people want to see these girls play.”

Mason hopes turning CheckRock into a coed league will help further expand the organization to where they can make more teams for different age groups — not just high schoolers.

“This will be my seventh year,” Mason said. “It’d be my seventh season for the boys, and it’d be my very first season for the girls. I do plan on expanding … I’m all about giving kids a real competitive platform. It’s always about raising the bar. It’s bigger than basketball.”