Everett Case, the late legendary N.C. State University men’s basketball coach, instigated the sprouting of the backyard basketball goals behind homes along Tobacco Road. Now ESPN is doing him one better — with a new series of sports promos literally depicting basketballs as the hot commodity they are, being harvested from America’s farm fields.

But it’s not just any fields you’ll be seeing. The promos are being shot at the Jackson Farming Co. in Autryville, N.C., with location use fees going to an N.C. State scholarship endowment.

A producer for Motion Theory, the Los Angeles production company that developed the promotional concept for a DIRECTV pay series to air on ESPN, chose the Jackson farm after sending a scout to look for a good farm location to shoot the commercial. The producers, looking for a farm that grows melons, decided that the Jacksons’ facilities were the perfect backdrop for the promos.

They contacted the family, requesting to shoot footage on the farm for about four days and offering compensation for equipment use and facilities.

Farm owners Brent, Debbie, Rodney and Josh Jackson agreed — on one condition: that Motion Theory contribute the fee to the Adam Brent Jackson Memorial Scholarship Endowment in N.C. State’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

Motion Theory and DIRECTV arrived in late July at the Sampson County farm to get the shots of basketballs “growing” in a field of foot-high cantaloupe blossoms, as well as being cultivated in a greenhouse, sorted and graded in a pack house and hauled to market.

At the same time, the commercial producers presented the Jacksons a check payable to their son’s memorial scholarship fund. The family created this scholarship in honor of their son Adam, who was killed in an automobile accident during his senior year at Midway High School in Sampson County. A three-sport standout at Midway, Adam had been accepted to attend N.C. State and major in agricultural business.

The Adam Brent Jackson Endowment provides merit-based scholarships for undergraduate students, with top priorities for selection given to Midway High students planning to major in traditional agriculture in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at N.C. State.

The promos are scheduled to run this fall.

—Terri Leith