You've heard of bottle babies? "Moo Moo" Evans was a bottle baby. No, make that a cattle baby. Actually, dairy-farm baby would be more like it.

We're talking major consumer of liquid protein.

Which explains not only how "Moo Moo" got his nickname, but also why he grew up, and up, and up, to be a Harlem Globetrotter.

With very strong bones.

Though he says he won't be toting a carton onto the court during his Jan. 24 Globetrotters gig at Bloomington's U.S. Cellular Coliseum, Evans confesses that he came by his nickname fairly.

"When I was a baby, my mom would give my aunt (who took care of him during the day) two or three bottles of milk to feed me," the 25-year-old Memphis native recalls.

Being a growing boy, Evans says he would down that quantity within an hour or two.

"Easy."

All told, an actual day's intake was more along the lines of six or seven bottles.

"My aunt got tired of buying the extra milk," Evans recalls.

Her feeling, with just cause, was that they should just invest in a whole cow.

They didn't, of course. But the little milk junkie was christened "Moo Moo" as a kind of consolation.

What better poster boy for the American Dairy Association than he?

During his strapping Memphis youth, the 6-foot-3 "Moo Moo" became a star athlete and garnered various honors and trophies as a member of the Raleigh-Egypt High School squad. That was followed by a similar game plan with Alabama's Troy University Trojans.

Before all of that happened, however, Evans had had a fateful encounter, around the age of 10, with the Harlem Globetrotters.

The fusion of clowning and prowess captured young "Moo Moo's" fancy to the point that he announced to his father, "Someday, I want to be one."

Since nine out of 10 young boys who see the Globetrotters probably wish they could be one, too, the odds were not stacked in the former bottle baby's favor.

Fate intervened, recalls Evans, "when one of the guys on the team (from Memphis) came home for a weekend and was playing around Memphis."

Evans' reputation had preceded that visit, and inspired the visiting Globetrotter to ask, "So what are you doing with your talent?"

Good question.

Evans was still trying to decide if he wanted to go pro for a living or pursue another line of work.

Amazingly, after his first tryout, which he critiqued as "horrible," Evans was on board within two or three weeks.

"I guess they liked my jumping ability," he modestly assesses. "They wanted to use that."

To say the least.

"I'm my own worst critic," he recalls of the tryout, which he didn't think showed off his shooting ability to its best advantage.

So what did he know?

Interestingly, after becoming a full-fledged Globetrotter three years ago, Evans was faced with the nickname situation.

Every team member is expected to carry a nickname these days, all the better to recall the glory days of such nickname-bearing team legends as Meadowlark Lemon and Curly Neal.

And the Globetrotters had one all picked out for Evans.

It had nothing to do with dairy products.

"The general manager didn't think it was too good," Evans recalls. "He said he didn't think I would like it."

It was so bad, in fact, that Evans was never even told what it was.

So "Moo Moo" it was, and remains.

These days, Evans is part of a concerted Harlem Globetrotters revival - one designed to push the organization back to the high-profile days of yore, when players like Curly and Meadowlark were media icons on a par with more traditional sports stars.

In the '50s, they were the subjects of no less than two major movies (1951's "The Harlem Globetrotters" and 1954's sequel, "Go, Man, Go").

In the '70s, they earned their own Saturday morning Hanna-Barbera cartoon series ("The Harlem Globetrotters").

And who can forget the '80s, which brought forth the TV-movie classic, "The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan's Island."

To rekindle a little of that high-profile exposure, the Globetrotters will be the subject of a network TV special in February, their first in many years.

"I think the organization is trying to do something to put us back in the public eye," agrees Evans.

And also cash in on the Globetrotters formidable history.

"Our new owners are also trying to bring back some of the older guys (for public appearances)," he adds. "It will let people know that we don't just throw them away, but that we still respect them, and that they're still around."

At a glace

What: The Harlem Globetrotters

When: 7 p.m. Jan. 24

Where: U.S. Cellular Coliseum, 101 S. Madison St., Bloomington

Tickets: $21 to $78

Box office number: (866) 891-9992

Elsewhere: 7 p.m. Wednesday, Prairie Capital Convention Center, Springfield