”Juice” isn’t just a nickname for Idaho State wide receiver Julian Mason.

It’s his identity.

Before he was the elder statesman of the Bengals’ receiver room, he was an 8-year-old without a care in the world, playing the game he had grown to love.

Ahead of a tense youth football playoff game, he ignored the advice everyone was giving him. Instead of choosing between Gatorade chews and the drink, he took both. The result was a kid who could not sit still. One of his coaches blurted out “Juice,” and Julian became a first name in theory only.

“From then on out, it’s crazy that it just stuck ever since, 8 years old,” Mason said.

It stuck permanently. Mason carries it on his right arm, tattooed inside a juice container reading “100% Juice.”

Mason is entering his fifth and likely final season at Idaho State — and by his coaches’ account, his turn.

A native of Tacoma, Washington, Mason didn’t always know football was what he wanted.

The game was around him from the start. His days were spent with his dad and his older brother, Robert Mason III, who went on to play receiver at Central Washington and Eastern Washington. There were hours of training sessions and workouts, and at times it wasn’t what Mason wanted to be doing. But the time on the grass with his family started to rub off, and he fell in love with it.

“He used to always make me work out with him,” Julian Mason said about his father. “I used to be reluctant at first, but then as I got older, and then I started seeing how much that started paying off. That really started [me] falling in love.”

Being a receiver was in his blood, and he followed his older brother’s footsteps.

He landed at Graham-Kapowsin High School, where the group he played with had been together since sixth grade. That closeness showed up his senior year, when the Eagles beat Lake Stevens 44-7 for the school’s first state championship and a perfect 14-0 season.

The highlight came in the game after. In the GEICO State Champions Bowl Series finale, played on ESPNU at Bishop Gorman High School in Las Vegas, Graham-Kapowsin drew Georgia champion Collins Hill and future Heisman trophy winner and Jacksonville Jaguar Travis Hunter, who was then, the No. 1 recruit in the country.

In his final high school game, on national television, the stage didn’t faze Mason. With his team trailing, he hauled in a 57-yard touchdown to put Graham-Kapowsin in the lead for his final score in a high school uniform. He finished with seven catches for 119 yards, including a 14-yard grab on the winning drive, and the Eagles went on to stun Collins Hill 40-36 to finish 15-0.

“It felt really good,” Mason said. “Knowing that was our goal since we started playing. The fact that we completed the mission, man, and then our head coach ended up retiring after that. So it was good to send him off. After that, I’m not gonna lie, most of the guys were like, ‘Shoot, let’s get on to college.’”

Mason’s next stop was Idaho State.

He visited under former head coach Charlie Ragle and saw a vision of what the program could become and where he could fit into it. When the staff changed and Cody Hawkins took over, Mason stuck with his decision.

“I felt like it was like a calling,” Mason said. “I knew that the school hadn’t been that good. But I was like, shoot, I’m always one [to win] throughout high school, so why not change that narrative and bring the winning to a school, be a part of something that ends up turning it all around?”

When Hawkins arrived, Mason was one of only four players who stayed from the previous roster.

“It’s not so much that staying for five years is important,” Hawkins said. “To me, it’s the fact that they commit to a program, go through the highs and lows, they allow the culture of the program to kind of become a fiber in their identity, and that they make a positive difference in themselves and the team because of their consistency and persistence throughout their career.”

Idaho State has been deep at receiver, and separating himself has been hard to do. In four seasons, Mason has 14 career catches for 165 yards and a touchdown.

In most cases having to wait for that long causes players to transfer. Mason isn’t most cases.

“When you transfer, guys always think the grass is always greener on the other side,” Mason said. “Ever since Coach Hawkins has been here, man, each year has gotten better and better. I was like, I’m not going to leave and then see how he’s making this program better and better. I don’t want to miss out on that.”

Mason flashed what he could do for Bengals fans last season in an Oct. 1 matchup versus Montana in the ICCU Dome.

With four minutes left in the half and Idaho State trailing 18-17, quarterback Jordan Cooke escaped pressure and rolled to his right. Mason beat his defender and cut inside. Cooke threw a frozen rope, and Mason toe-tapped it in — his first and, so far, only college touchdown. He finished the game with three receptions for a career-high 49 yards.

Bengals fans saw the potential that night. This spring and summer, his teammates and coaches say they have seen more than potential.

“As a position coach who walked into a kid who’s been through multiple position coaches, multiple coaching staff changes … having earned his trust, I think he’s made that easy,” said first-year ISU wide receivers coach Joshua Thompson. “I believe any great team has player-led leadership, and he’s done an amazing job at that.”

He is now on the field with the starting offense and has been making plays all over the field in preparation for the upcoming season.

What impressed Hawkins the most wasn’t only the play. It was who Mason was when the scoreboard was off.

“I’m super proud of him, the person that he’s become, the leader that he has become,” Hawkins said. “He’s always been a really fun person to be around, but to see him continue to chip away at his own craft, at his own personal development, is something that not a lot of guys have the patience to do. He’s the cream of the crop from a person standpoint, and he’s been part of a lot of really good receiver rooms for a long time. And now it’s finally his time to go do it.”

Thompson describes two sides of Mason, one on the field and one off it.

“I would say that he’s a beacon of light in terms of the rooms that he walks into,” Thompson said. “I’d say on the field, he’s super competitive. He wants to be perfect. He wants to push the standard. He wants to make the play. He wants to be the guy that’s called on, and he’s going to deliver when his number is called.”

In just over a week, the Bengals open at home against Virginia Military Institute on Aug. 29 at 4 p.m. In what is likely his last season, Mason isn’t taking any of it for granted.

“If I really look back, I’m just glad to really just still be playing the game,” Mason said. “It’s shaped me to be the person I am now, so I don’t really regret anything. I feel like, God’s journey, he doesn’t make mistakes. Really just trusting the story that he has. The story’s written. As long as I’m putting my best foot forward and knowing that I’m giving it my all, then there’s really nothing else I could regret.”

Mason will run out in his No. 80 jersey for one more season. Every time he crosses the white lines with his teammates, he isn’t playing for the stats, the records or the recognition. He’s playing for the 8-year-old who was juiced to play the game of football.

“I’ve been playing since 6, so I mean it means everything,” Mason said. “I hope my kids will one day play football, just carrying on that knowledge and passing it down to them. The good and the bad stuff that’s happened. Walking off, knowing that I gave it everything I got, seeing if there’s next, if there’s opportunities like overseas, NFL or Canada.

“I think he’d be proud,” he added. “The young me.”