By Michael N. Graff

BUIES CREEK- There's a legend down south, one almost as old as the bayou itself, about the athletic string of genes in the Eackles family.

Apparently, one of the family's early patriarchs could broad jump, rocket-launch-like, and click his heels three times before returning them to the Louisiana soil.

"Yessir," says 70-year-old Fannie Eackles, mother of 10 gifted athletes and grandmother to many more. "My husband's daddy would jump up and clap his feet three times. That's a fact."

Think Fannie's telling a tall Cajun tale?

Consider this: Among her 10 children, four earned track scholarships to college and three more earned basketball scholarships.

The most well-known son, Ledell, played seven NBA seasons, six with the Washington Bullets.

And now his son, Ledell Terell, is closing out a brief career at Campbell University, during which he's been a linchpin in the rebuilding of the program.

The latest sports torch-bearer of the family, Ledell Terell is a collage of family parts. His story isn't just one of an NBA father and his son. That relationship is somewhere in the margin. The soon-to-be college graduate looks up to his dad, but he idolizes the mom who raised him. And he knows he wouldn't be complete without the extended family on his dad's side, or the athletic genes that came from them.

"I looked at my dad as a big role model; he did the things he could for me," Ledell Terell said. "But I'm a momma's boy."

Known as Terell around his family and Ledell around campus, the younger Eackles will answer to both names this afternoon. His mom and dad will be in Carter Gym for his senior night ceremony.

Ledell Eackles, the NBA retiree, lives in Maryland and still helps out with the Washington Wizards. Terell's brother, Ledrick, just moved to Maryland, too. Not surprisingly, he's the showcase basketball player at his new high school.

Antoinette Holden, the boys' mom, is a dental assistant in Baton Rouge, her hometown. She and Ledell are still friends - upholding a decision they made in the best interest of their children when they split 20 years ago.

The rest of the family, the dozens of them, will be back home in Louisiana today, waiting to hear reports from senior night, ready to write the latest family legend.

As a kid pressed against the car window, Terell only saw the back of his dad's head in the airport. But he always wondered if there were tears on the other side, similar to the ones rolling down his cheek.

Ledell visited as much as he could during his career, flying to Baton Rouge during all-star breaks and other brief moments of free time.

But he never could stay. A good but not legendary NBA player who averaged 10.8 points in his seven seasons, Ledell had to work to stay in the league.

Still, he provided all the financial assistance his boys and their mother needed.

"I wasn't always there for Christmas," Ledell said. "Nine times out of 10, I was playing. We entertain everybody for Christmas. ... In any two parents, there's always one that's trying to provide and one that's more close to the family."

The boys never resented him, and they certainly never turned down the free trips to see NBA games or the monetary support that always came their way.

"I couldn't fault him; there are people who don't see their dads at all," Terell said. "He had a good reason. He always took care of us."

Still, the tears flowed at the end of each visit.

On both sides.

"Yeah, I cried," Ledell said. "It wasn't only him. I had to be brave and just turn away and walk."

Riding to Campbell's campus from the airport Friday, Terell and Antoinette bantered back and forth about the likelihood of a Campbell victory this weekend.

"Do y'all have a big man?" Antoinette asked, breaking down the Camels and holding a phone conversation at the same time. "I know you've got somebody to bring the ball up the floor. But you've got to have a big man."

Today's game will be the second Antoinette has seen Terell play during his two years at Campbell. He transferred here after a junior college career at Copiah-Lincoln Community College in Wesson, Miss.

But she's no stranger to his game. On Ledell's first birthday, he got a small basketball goal to play with in the house.

In fact, Antoinette pushed her sons into basketball as fast as their dad.

"He was born into it," Antoinette said. "But he got his speed from his mom."

Terell's main downfall is his size. He's only 5-foot-9.

Like everything in his makeup, he can attribute the height to a family member. His grandfather, Fannie's husband Otis, is just 5-foot-2.

But fed well on his wife's gumbo, Otis has always been strong and athletic.

"I call them Popeye and Olive Oil, because she's so much taller than him," Terell said of his dad's parents.

Otis and Fannie have been married 52 years and their family has survived everything from NBA careers to Hurricane Katrina.

Regardless of whether Terell makes a career out of basketball - he's an early childhood development major - the family's string of athletes certainly hasn't been tarnished.

And maybe there's a new legend about quick hands somewhere in Terell. He does, after all, rank first in the Atlantic Sun Conference in
steals.

"He is something good. Always was," Fannie said last week. "When he was a boy, I could tell. I said, 'Boy he's gonna be something else.'"