Harlem Globetrotter star, Special Olympics players inspire each other at Waterloo session
April 04, 2010
BY BARBARA AGGERHOLM,
RECORD STAFF
WATERLOO – His cool moves and wise words energized a Special Olympics basketball team, but the players left their mark on Harlem Globetrotters guard Herbert “Moo Moo” Evans too.
“I get inspired and motivated by them,” said Evans, a sixfoot-three-inch guard on the elite basketball team. “They never give up on their dream.”
For an hour or so Saturday, Evans, mesmerized more than 20 male and female basketball players on the Kitchener-Waterloo Special Olympics team in a gym at RIM Park in Waterloo.
The 27-year-old basketball player from Memphis, Tennessee spoke to the team, and later to children at Grand River Hospital as part of two Globetrotters’ motivational programs that focus on health, co-operation and responsibility, and on spreading a smile.
The Globetrotters are bringing their 2010 “Magical Memories” World Tour to the Aud in Kitchener on Thursday, April 8 at 7 p.m.
Evans told players that his nickname came from his love of milk. When he was a kid, he’d drink four to five bottles of milk in an hour, he said, adding he still drinks plenty of milk today.
“I’ve never broken a bone, knock on wood,” he said, smiling.
Even before he got on the basketball court to demonstrate the Globetrotters’ trademark skills, Evans impressed players who said they respect the Globetrotters’ message about having fun, while playing with integrity.
Members of the Harlem Globetrotters team — most of whom played in big-time U.S. college programs — could play in the NBA (National Basketball Association) but they choose to encourage and entertain others instead, said Special Olympics basketball player Thomas Hirons, 18. “A lot of sports stars focus on themselves and don’t focus on the less fortunate,” he said. “I believe that they (Harlem Globetrotters) think of other people before themselves.”
Hirons said he grew up as a good athlete, but “I’m sort of the side guy who people didn’t know could play. “Guys like these give us opportunities,” he said. “They go to the Special Olympics and see the potential of Special Olympics players.”
Evans showed a few moves, spinning the ball on his finger, performing slam dunks and hitting some long jump shots. Players joked with him when he got the ball in on the third try. “Must be the wind,” they said, laughing. Then he played an energetic game with them, punctuated by laughter and good-natured competition. He did the Globetrotters’ patented “three-man weave” with the players, who practise the move every week. But almost more than the game, players enjoyed talking basketball, trading nicknames and asking Evans questions such as why aren’t you playing NBA teams?
“No one wants to play us,” Evans said. “I think they’re scared of us.”
The Globetrotters did play pro teams in the team’s early days, notably the NBA champion Minneapolis Lakers led by George Mikan, beating the Lakers twice in 1948 and 1949 before losing later matchups. But the Trotters’ main mission remains fun and inspiration. Evans said his inspiration is his mother, Mary Carruthers, who worked three jobs as a single mother
to raise him and his brother. Today, she drives 18-wheel, two-trailer trucks for a shipping company, he said. “It’s a male-dominated career and she was discriminated against, but she never quit,” Evans said. She pushed her kids to get good grades and have an education, he said. Evans graduated from Troy University in Alabama with a degree in Business Information Systems.
One day, he’d like to have his own gym, he said. He urged players to make education a priority.
