Charlotte County owes a lot that it enriches it to families.

In the course of my duties as sports editor for The Charlotte Gazette, I frequently have the opportunity to write about the success of various athletic teams from the county. These teams have a winning legacy for several reasons, and one that jumped out to me last week was families with strong athletic abilities.

Often athletic traditions are passed down through the family as a father spends time with his children. Such was the case with the Mason family.

Evan Mason is a key senior leader on the Randolph-Henry High School (R-H) varsity golf squad that has accumulated 20 district championships, six regional championships and one state championship in the last 23 years. Through Thursday, Randolph-Henry had won 179 district matches in a row.

Evan is in his fourth year on the varsity team, but the Statesmen have been relying upon Masons for much longer than that. His older brothers, Ryan and Jonathan, also once served as team members.

As the boys’ father, Alan Mason, explained, Jonathan represented R-H for four years on the links, with the team playing in the state championship three out of those four years.

Though his scores did not count as an eighth-grader since he was not technically in high school, Ryan Mason played with the varsity Statesmen for five years and was on the 2005 state title-winning team.

Though Alan Mason noted he is stronger in baseball and football than in golf, he said, “I joined Briery (Country Club) in 1994, and as all three of them got old enough to play, I was more than happy for them to join me on the course.”

And likely a similar familial bond led to Gary Walker coaching a host of second-generation players, like Joe Reed, Cameron and Matthew Vassar, Jay Gee, Cade Jordan and Taylor and Colby Trent.

Titus Mohler is sports editor of The Charlotte Gazette. His email address is Titus.Mohler@TheCharlotteGazette.com.