MPlayer was compiled without libmp3lame support.Please help!

We are getting the error "MPlayer was compiled without libmp3lame support" when we try to convert a video in the admin interface.

We have all the server requirements (in fact, the script was working just a few days ago). Somehow the script broke and we have compiled MPlayer several times, libmp3lame is installed, and it stills says that.

Installation:

cd /usr/local/src/lame-3.97
./configure --prefix=/usr
make && make install

cd /usr/local/src/mplayer
./configure --codecsdir=/usr/local/lib/codecs --extraincdir=/usr/local/src/lame-3.97 --extralibdir=/usr/local/lib --prefix=/usr/local
make && make install

service httpd restart

the ./configure does show:
Checking for libmp3lame (for mencoder) ... yes
Checking for mencoder ... yes

mencoder -oac help
shows:
Available codecs:
copy - frame copy, without re-encoding (useful for AC3)
pcm - uncompressed PCM audio
mp3lame - cbr/abr/vbr MP3 using libmp3lame
lavc - FFmpeg audio encoder (MP2, AC3, ...)

It's still not working - anyone know what might be wrong? Do we need to compile things in a different order? The lame codec is installed and we have compiled mplayer several times in different ways yet none of those work. I've searched through many similar posts on Google yet either none of the posted suggestions work or there is no solution. Any advice from admin, perhaps?

Thanks a lot!