Harvey Mason’s life after basketball has been note-perfect

Music was always an enjoyable if somewhat trifling diversion for Harvey Mason Jr.

Basketball was his life.

Son of a noted jazz drummer, Mason penned a tune that was recorded and released by saxophonist Grover Washington Jr. when the precocious songwriter was only 8 years old. Mason says he bought a model airplane with his first royalty check.

But it was basketball’s pulsating rhythms that really moved him.

“It’s the old story,” Mason says. “I worked every day — Christmas Eve, birthdays — trying to become a great basketball player. Everywhere I went, I had a basketball.”

Basketball took him to Arizona, where the formerly prodigious scorer from Crescenta Valley High morphed into a role player and defense-minded reserve, helping the Sean Elliott-led Wildcats reach the Final Four in 1988.

He even co-wrote a song, still played at Arizona games, to accompany the team’s run: “Wild About the Cats.”

Two years later, Mason was a senior starter and still dreaming of a career in pro ball, perhaps overseas if not in the NBA.

But then fate intervened.

Landing awkwardly at practice, he suffered a knee injury that ended his hoop dreams and shifted his priorities.

Changing direction on the fly, Mason soon launched a career as a songwriter-producer that has been hugely successful, leading to working relationships with a who’s-who of pop music stars, from Michael Jackson, Aretha Franklin to Elton John to Britney Spears to Justin Timberlake to Jennifer Hudson.

Along the way he co-produced the “Dreamgirls” soundtrack, which yielded three Academy Award-nominated songs.

Now basketball is his diversion, Mason playing weekly in an entertainment-industry league in Santa Monica.

Music fuels his fire.

“If basketball was my only thing in life, and the only thing I cared about,” Mason says, “I probably would have said, ‘OK, let me just start over and see if I can prove myself again.’ But I felt like I’d been thrust into a different direction. I didn’t have the desperation that I may have had if I didn’t have other options.”

Mason, 41, sits in his darkened North Hollywood recording studio as he speaks. Dressed in jeans, a dark button-down shirt and white basketball shoes, he orders breakfast from an aide: oatmeal, skim milk, brown sugar and three eggs, scrambled.

Recently, the 6-foot-4 father of two happily combined his two passions — music and basketball — by producing a Hudson-sung version of “One Shining Moment,” the unofficial NCAA tournament anthem that will debut in an updated arrangement during the network’s April 5 telecast of the championship game.

CBS, at Hudson’s suggestion, approached Mason without knowledge of his basketball resume, which includes a brief on-court appearance during top-ranked Arizona’s upset loss to Oklahoma in the national semifinals of the 1988 tournament.

“I tried to explain to Harvey what the song means to CBS and to the tournament,” CBS Sports producer Tracy Morris says of their initial conversation, “and he stopped me and said, ‘I understand completely,’ and explained his background.

“It was at that point that I knew we had the right guy.”

Grammy winner Toni Braxton says Mason’s patience and attention to detail make him a valued producer.

“I think because he was an athlete, he’s a perfectionist,” the singer says from Atlanta. “He knows how to get the best out of you, like a great coach. He understands singing and singers and how to get the best tone and texture out of your voice.”

A three-time All-Southern Section player and hotly pursued recruit in high school, Mason mostly faded into the background at Arizona, where he averaged four points.

As a writer-producer, he has chosen a similarly supportive role, even though Braxton calls him a wonderful singer.

“I think I went more toward writing because that’s my talent,” says Mason, who lives in Manhattan Beach with wife Jeannine, a former Arizona volleyball player; son Trey, 15; and daughter Mia, 13. “I don’t think I was a great performer. . . .

“And I like being behind the scenes a little bit. I like creating something from nothing and hearing it on the radio or on stage or from somebody driving down the street singing it. It’s like building a house, taking a vacant piece of land and next thing you know there’s a house with somebody living in it.”

Mason says he writes about 70 songs a year. He also has ventured into film production, overseeing the making and release of the 2009 documentary “More Than a Game,” which traces the lives of LeBron James and his high school teammates.

Reconnecting with the NCAA tournament through “One Shining Moment,” he says, was an unexpected thrill.

“When they asked if I would do it, I said, ‘Absolutely,’ ” Mason recalls. “They said, ‘But you don’t know our budget,’ and I said, ‘I don’t care. That’s irrelevant.’

“I didn’t care about anything other than the fact I was going to get a chance to do it because it’s so tied to the NCAA tournament. I just thought that was the coolest thing.”

Reaching the Final Four with Lute Olson & Co. at Arizona, he says, was the highlight of his basketball career.

“Right up to the tipoff,” he says.

jerome.crowe@latimes.com