WITH AN EYE ON . . . : ‘Extra’: Hear all about how Athel Neville met and married her husband

Arthel Neville loves a good story. One of the “Extra” anchor’s favorites is about herself--how she met her new husband, Panthers running back Derric Lassic.

From the green room at the “Extra” studios, as she has makeup applied, Neville sounds almost giddy. No matter that she’s told this story many a time.

“I love telling it,” she enthuses. In February, 1994, Neville was between jobs at E!--where she hosted the interview show “Extreme Close-Up” for 2 1/2 years. She was co-hosting the Miss USA pageant. Lassic, 24, was a judge.

“He was so cute,” says Neville, 32. A friend and pageant official wouldn’t introduce the “shy” Lassic to her. “Then,” Neville says slowly, “she dared me $10 to introduce myself to him.”

Neville, who says she’s “very serious about anything I’m interested in,” accepted the dare. Back in her hotel room, she called him up and asked him out.

Lassic played it safe. “You’ve heard the stories about professional athletes and groupies,” Neville says. He agreed to meet her at a friend’s room. Neville says neither had any idea who the other was. “His friend was to look through the peephole. If I was cute, he’d let me in. Derric was sure his friend was pulling a prank when he opened the door, but I guess I passed.”

The couple’s traditional-style wedding took place in Neville’s hometown of New Orleans last April. “The reception was wonderful, like a four-hour aerobic session for me,” she recalls.

Neville recently saw her husband off to summer training camp. They’ll set up a homestead at his base in North Carolina and shuttle between there and an apartment in Toluca Lake, not far from where Neville works daily on the entertainment magazine show.

“It’s difficult,” she acknowledges. “We’re blessed we can fly to meet when we can and talk on the phone as long as we want.”

Neville, the daughter of Neville Brother keyboardist Art Neville, was a pharmacy student before she was a broadcast journalist. “I love hanging out in drugstores,” the former Southern Methodist University student says. “But I’m little Miss Chatterbox. I wouldn’t stay behind a counter. I’d be in the middle of the store talking.”

And talking was how she eventually ended up in broadcasting, which became her major when she switched to the University of Texas at Austin. Between schools, she took a year to model and do commercials in New York, which included a Burger King spot--and voice lessons. “I had to lose my very heavy accent,” she says. “Otherwise, no one would understand me.”

After graduation, she became a news anchor for local stations in New Orleans and Houston. Moving to Chicago, she hosted the syndicated “Travel & Adventure” show. Returning to New Orleans in 1990, she again worked as an anchor, before landing on E!’s “Extreme Close-Up.”

Her anchor duties on “Extra” don’t allow for many interviews, but Neville enjoys them when she can. “The interviewer sets the tone,” she says. “It’s like driving a car. However, you let the subject navigate. You drive and must be willing to take the side turns they take you on.”

One of Neville’s own side turns has been acting, but she makes it clear she is not an aspiring actress “like Oprah,” she says. “She has her show and her business and she acts. I have my work, but if Steven Spielberg or Barry Levinson or Oliver Stone or someone like that calls and says, ‘Look, Art, here’s a great part, no nudity, a good meaty role,’ and I know it won’t hurt my credibility, I’ll do it.”

“I could go in several directions in the future,” Neville says, choosing her words carefully. “I don’t want to paint myself into a corner.” She will say a family may be in the works in a year and looks forward to one solid home base. And to telling and hearing many a good story on “Extra.”

“Extra” airs weekdays at 7 p.m. on KNBC.