Lansdale Catholic’s Terrance Smith is among the nation’s top high school tackles. He’s also Allen Iverson’s cousin.

In 2001, in the middle of a game against the Los Angeles Lakers, Allen Iverson sat on the Sixers bench and scanned the crowd.

He’d been sweating and hadn’t used rubber bands to tie his braids. They were beginning to fall out. So, he called over his aunt, Jessie Iverson-Bowman.

Wearing a white bandana with “M.V.P Iverson” printed on the front, she lifted her hands and got to work, carefully intertwining each piece of hair. The moment lasted only a few seconds, but was instantly cemented into NBA lore; an ode to the women supporting the league’s brightest stars.

Terrance Smith wasn’t born yet, but knows the sentiments all too well. The Lansdale Catholic tackle has experienced that same moment himself.

Years ago, back when he had braids, it was often his grandmother, Iverson-Bowman, who tied them.

“She’s very heavy handed,” he said, smiling. “And she doesn’t deal with crying.”

Smith, 18, is a highly touted high school football recruit as Iverson once was. Unlike Iverson, he is trying to make a career out of it.

The teenager, who is one of the top offensive linemen in the country, is bound for LSU in 2027. He is also The Answer’s second cousin, although you wouldn’t know it at first glance.

Smith stands at 6-foot-7, 290 pounds. When he played basketball, he was a center, because he was always the biggest kid on the court.

Iverson, by contrast, was famously undersized. The NBA listed the point guard at 6 foot, 165 pounds, but his contemporaries believed he was closer to 5-11 or 5-10. Smith inherited the genes of Iverson-Bowman’s uncles, who “are absurdly tall,” in his telling.

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“And then it just skipped my grandma’s generation,” he said.

(And Iverson’s, too).

There are other differences. Iverson was an attention-magnet, in good ways and bad. Few athletes can transform a chain restaurant into a popular Philadelphia nightclub, for example, but the Sixers point guard was able to do so.

His younger cousin is far more understated. Smith prides himself on his humility. He doesn’t boast his Division I pedigree, let alone his lineage.

Lansdale Catholic’s staff was completely unaware of his relationship to Iverson.

“I mean, I’ve never once heard him talk about it,” interim head coach Joe Whitesell said.

The truth is that Iverson is only one part of Smith’s story. It was his entire family that got him to a powerhouse SEC school; from Jessie, who babysat him when he was young, to his uncle, Tim Bowman, who taught him the game of football, to his mother, Coyea Bowman, who raised him as a single parent.

“They’ve guided me to be the person I am today,” Smith said. “They’ve made up my ideals.”

Not long after Iverson was drafted by the Sixers in the summer of 1996, Jessie and her children moved to Philadelphia with him.

It wasn’t an easy transition. The pace of life in the Delaware Valley was faster than that of Hampton, Va., and Coyea, who was in the seventh grade, was leaving her childhood friends behind.

But she now looks at that time as a blessing. The region has since become her family’s home; especially Smith.

When he and his mother moved from Bridgeport, Pa., to Marietta, Ga., in 2012, the future tackle was distraught. Coyea’s older brother, Shaun, and Jessie were living in Georgia at the time.

Coyea took a job in retail, working long hours as her mother cared for her 3-year-old son.

This arrangement didn’t last long. Even at a young age, Smith desperately missed home. After his grandma returned north, in 2015, he and his mother followed suit.

“And this has kind of been my place ever since,” Smith said. “I just got used to it and never left.”

The mother and son moved to Blue Bell, where Smith enrolled in Cole Manor Elementary, and then Blue Bell Elementary. He almost exclusively played basketball, and not just because of his Hall of Fame-bound cousin. Coyea also played, at Upper Merion Area High School, and Division III Centenary University.

Tim was a standout point guard at Division II Oklahoma Baptist University, helping lead the program to its first national championship in 44 years, before signing with a pro team out of China.

“We forced him [to play hoops],” Coyea said. “I didn’t want him to play football.”

It didn’t take long for Smith to realize he wasn’t one for the family business. He rarely played basketball recreationally. He wasn’t shooting in his spare time.

If anything, he was with his uncle, who’d returned from China in 2013 and coached youth football in nearby Conshohocken. Smith would stand by his side and listen as Tim yelled out different plays and formations; learning the game by proximity.

By the time he’d arrived at Wissahickon Middle School, Smith had begun to hit his growth spurt, and parents on the football team were noticing. One day, a group of dads approached Coyea at an AAU game.

“And they’re like, ‘Your son’s bigger than everyone,’” Coyea recalled. “‘Why don’t you let him play?’ And I said, ‘All right, guys, I’ll let him play a few games, but if he gets hurt…’ And it’s history from there.”

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The tackle quickly bought in. Smith started running hills and ladder drills with his uncle. He joined the Bears’ AAU team, which, in conjunction with Wissahickon, had him practicing seven times a week.

Even at home, Coyea noticed changes. She’d bring her son his favorite candy, gummy bears, and all of a sudden, he was refusing it.

“He’s like, ‘Mom, I don’t want that today,’” she said. “‘I can’t put that in my body.’”

With every passing year, the teenager became more and more disciplined. He’d study film at home, either on his phone or on his laptop. He’d spend hours on the turf fields at Center Square Park in Blue Bell, doing extra drills.

Smith had always been athletic, especially for his size, but added even more muscle throughout high school, working with strength coaches, offensive line coaches, speed coaches. He and Coyea went to football camps, near and far, and before long, offers started rolling in.

None of this was cheap. But his mother made it happen, by cutting back on her own spending, and putting in extra hours at the property management company where she worked.

“She had to sacrifice a lot of things for me,” Smith said. “She wanted to stay in Georgia, but she moved back up here because I wanted to be back.

“And getting down to these visits. Obviously, you have to pay for a lot of things — flights, whatever. And as a single parent that’s not easy. She’s always just been a hard worker.”

Coyea’s example instilled an industriousness in her son that endures. So did a pep talk from his celebrity cousin.

In April 2024, Terrance and Coyea joined Iverson for a statue dedication ceremony outside of the Sixers’ practice facility. The former point guard knew Smith was getting offers from colleges.

He pulled him aside.

“[Allen] said, ‘If you want to do this, you’re going to have to work three times harder than everybody else,’” Coyea recalled. “‘While everybody else is sleeping, you’re out there perfecting your craft. While everybody else is hanging out with their friends, you need to be studying the game.’

“He said, ‘If you work hard in that way — and it is going to require sacrifice of your personal time — it’s going to pay off in the end. It takes a lot of heart, dedication and attention and time.’ And that’s pretty much what Terrance has given.”

Compared to some of the other high schools in the area, Lansdale Catholic is not a football factory. After moving from Class 2A to Class 3A, the Crusaders have started their season 1-8.

Smith, who plays both offensive tackle and defensive end, is easily their best player, but doesn’t carry himself as such. His coaches say that he’s rarely decked out in LSU garb, and is always around to help his teammates, especially the newcomers.

This has been true even through injury. In 2024, he suffered an ACL tear midway through his sophomore year. It was a long rehab process, one that required surgery, but he was engaged and present throughout.

Whatever he was able to do — even if it was just individual drills — he showed up to do it. Sometimes, he showed up just to support his counterparts, serving as a de facto assistant coach on the sidelines.

During home games, the lineman would bring a camera to take action shots for his teammates.

“He was just trying to stay connected with the guys,” Whitesell said. “We have a kid right now that’s doing the same thing. He just had ACL surgery, and he’s down there on the field during practice, when it’s cold out, windy, whatever. And Terrance was just like that.”

Whitesell says his pupil has transformed in countless ways. He’s stronger, and more athletic, and more mobile than before. But he’s also emerged as a leader.

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At the beginning of the season, a few freshmen came to camp, took one look at Smith and his gargantuan build, and felt nervous.

The teenager noticed. And like his cousin once did for him, he pulled those youngsters aside. He told them that he understood their nerves. That years ago, he was in their shoes, staring up at players who were much bigger and stronger.

“But we don’t bite,” Smith explained. “We’re here to help you.”

To Whitesell, this is the core of who Smith is. On the outside, he looks like he could wreck a linebacker. And he can. But that ability doesn’t define him, and it certainly doesn’t affect the way he carries himself.

Neither does his kinship with a Sixers legend.

“He’s just a gentle giant,” Whitesell said. “A nice kid. A genuinely nice kid.”