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| SUNDAY, APRIL 7, 2013 | NORTH HEMPSTEAD-OYSTER BAY

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Kewan Beebe sitswatching sportson television,something hedoes religiously athis Glen Covehome. (March 31,2013)

Hard road to the hardwoodcoverstory

Before becoming a starbasketball player, Glen Cove’s

Kewan Beebe hadmany obstacles to overcome

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NOW ONLINESee more photos of Kewan Beebe.

newsday.com/lilife

BY MIKE GAVINmichael.gavin@newsday.com

The sound of gun-shots fired outsidehis Bronx apart-ment one Julynight in 2008awoke Kewan

Beebe. He rushed to the win-dow and peeked through thecurtain. It was just after 1:30a.m. Another shot was fired.

Beebe felt no pain. It wasn’tuntil he got a tingling in hisstomach and noticed his hand

covered in blood that he real-ized he was wounded — thestray bullet had struck the14-year-old in the lower abdo-men. Beebe was rushed to thehospital, where he underwentthe first of multiple surgeries.

“I thought I was going to die,”he said. “The only thing thatkept me alive was basketball.”

A defining momentA chorus of “MVP” chants

rained down from the standsat Glen Cove High School ayear ago as Beebe stood at thefree-throw line.

Just minutes earlier, it hadseemed that the most successfulseason in decades for the BigRed boys’ basketball team wasnearing its end. Glen Cove wasplaying Floral Park in the firstround of the Nassau Class Aplayoffs and trailed by 10 pointswith six minutes remaining.

But Beebe, who plays pointguard, was about to give histeam the very thing he hadrecently received: a secondchance at life.

“He gives these guys thefeeling they can win every

game,” said the team’s coach,Peter Falen. “He’s brought lifeto this program.”

In short order, Beebenailed a straightaway three-pointer. He weaved throughtraffic in the paint for thelayup. He followed up with asteal, and went coast-to-coast

See COVER STORY on G6

By a twist of fate after his aunt moved, Beebe ended up in the home and hearts of Carla and Frank D’Ambra in Glen Cove.

to the hardwood

Beebe’s mom,CassandraWeaver, above,died in 2007 inthe Bronx,where Beebewas shot in ’08.Right: Jan. 27,leading histeam againstManhasset.

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ON THE COVER. Beebe withthe D’Ambras; he leaves themthis fall to fulfill his dream,playing at college, in New Paltz. PH

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Star’s ‘second chance’for the bucket and the foul toconvert a three-point play.And that’s not all. He calmlydrained two free throws withjust seconds remaining —and those “MVP” chantsechoing in the background —to seal the comeback.

Beebe scored 10 of his 26points in the final few minutesto lift Glen Cove to a thrilling57-54 win.

For Beebe, who is now asenior, it was the defining mo-ment of his two seasons withGlen Cove. He led the Big Redto its first conference champion-ship in 22 years (the team lost toJericho in the quarterfinals) andwas named 2012 All-County andConference A-III Player of theYear.

It was also a step toward thedream he is chasing — to playcollege basketball.

But during his pursuit,Beebe has encountered manyobstacles. Being shot thatsummer night wasn’t the firstor the last, but it was a journeythat brought him into thehearts and home of Carla andFrank D’Ambra.

Surviving childhoodThe time — 7:44 p.m. — on

March 23, 2007, is embeddedin Beebe’s mind. A doctorpulled him, his two older broth-ers and an older sister aside totell them that their mother,Cassandra Weaver, had passedaway.

“I thought, to be honest, mylife was over,” recalled Beebe,who was 13 then and said hismother had been ill for sometime. “I really didn’t have areason to live. She was myeverything.”

While growing up, Beebeand his siblings bouncedaround the South Bronx withtheir mother.

“There was a lot of gangsand drugs,” Beebe recalled.“Basketball was the only thingyou could look forward tocoming outside for every day.”

Beebe said an aunt wasnamed guardian and movedinto the family’s Bronx apart-ment after his mother’s death.Just 16 months later, an alterca-tion involving his family out-side their apartment buildingturned violent, ending inBeebe’s bullet wound. Medical

records show he sufferedmultiple inter-abdominal punc-ture wounds. In the surgeriesthat followed, Beebe under-went a colostomy, had part ofhis large intestine removed,had the bullet taken out andthen had the colostomy re-versed.

He described the periodsbetween his operations as “the

worst time of my life” becausehe felt his basketball hopes werein jeopardy. He said he would liein his bed and synchronize therhythm of the monitors to thesound of a bouncing ball as heenvisioned himself driving pasta defender. When Beebe finallyfully recovered five monthsafter being shot, his sister, Vanes-sa Huggins, said the first thing

he did was pick up a basketball.“When my mom passed

away, the last thing he prom-ised her was that he wasgoing to do good in schooland continue to play basket-ball,” said Huggins, 24, of theBronx. “So once he got shot,his mentality was, ‘I have asecond chance at life, I’mgoing to chase my dream.’

From then on, that’s what hehas done every single day.”

During Beebe’s recovery, hisaunt moved the family toHampton, Va., where he wouldlive for the next three years.There were times, he said, thatthey went without food, elec-tricity and supervision.

“Every day I kept asking,‘Why me? Why is all of this

COVER STORY from G5

coverstory

The D’Ambras have embraced Kewan Beebe, Carlacheering him on in practice, Frank keeping his strengthup, and both adding his picture to family photos.

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Beebe discusses game strategy with his GlenCove teammates and coach Peter Falen duringhalftime of a home game in February. Hisawards have mounted; they include All-Countyand 2012 Conference A-III Player of the Year.

happening to me?’ ” Beebesaid. “I thought I did some-thing wrong.”

Finding his familyThe lone constant in his life

was basketball.Beebe started playing orga-

nized basketball for the firsttime with an Amateur AthleticUnion team in Virginia during

the summer of 2009. He beganto refine his game, developinga jump shot and improving hisball handling.

In 2011, he began makingtrips to Glen Cove to stay withfriends. He played at IslandGarden, a basketball facility inWest Hempstead, and attend-ed St. John’s basketball camp.Through his friend and former

Glen Cove High teammate,Yadiyah Letellier, Beebe wasintroduced to the D’Ambras, aGlen Cove couple whom Le-tellier knew through the Boysand Girls Club.

Carla D’Ambra, who is on thenonprofit’s board of directors,became somewhat of a basket-ball mom to Beebe, and the twoquickly established a bond.

That year, just a few monthsshy of his 18th birthday, Beebesaid his aunt called to informhim that she had moved onceagain and that his belongingswere in storage. With Beebeessentially homeless, theD’Ambras invited him to livewith them.

“Knowing Kewan’s storyreally put us in the right frame

of mind to try and help himout because, really, he had noone,” said Frank D’Ambra, whois chief executive of a freightforwarding company. “Wethought it would be a goodthing to do to give him achance to get through thingsso he could have a chance atsuccess.”

Beebe moved in with theD’Ambras in August 2011, andthe couple enrolled him as ajunior at Glen Cove High,where he overcame fluctuat-ing grades to become anhonor roll student.

“He was a 17-year-old boywho had lived three lifetimesalready with all he’d beenthrough,” said Carla D’Ambra,whom Beebe calls ‘Mom.’

The couple — who have nochildren together, althoughFrank has two daughters froma previous marriage — de-scribe Beebe as quiet butfunny, and mature but a bigkid at heart clinging to a child-hood that he was robbed of.Even at 19, Beebe’s favoritetelevision show is “SpongeBobSquare Pants.”

“Everywhere he goes, it’slike he tugs on people’shearts,” said Carla D’Ambra.“He has this aura of kindnessabout him. I wanted to helphim. Now, I can’t even imaginelife without Kewan Beebe.”

‘That was the turning point’In the D’Ambras’ three-bed-

room Victorian, Beebe has hisown bedroom for the first timein his life. In the fall, he willattend SUNY-New Paltz, becom-ing the first male in his family togo to college, his sister said.

“It’s so amazing to seewhere we came from and nowwhere he’s trying to go,” Hug-gins said. “A lot of people likeus, we don’t really make it. Buthe has followed his dream, andit’s unbelievable that he’sreally doing it.”

It may seem the D’Ambrasgave Beebe a second chance atlife, but the way he sees it, theygave him a first chance.

“I’d probably be dead on thestreets or in jail if it wasn’t forthem,” Beebe said. “That wasthe turning point of my life.”

There is no trace of his pasthardships when Beebe is on thecourt. In his last season at GlenCove, he averaged 16.3 pointsper game and led the Big Redback to the playoffs. Though hisroad to Glen Cove wasn’t nearlyas smooth as his jump shot,through it all, the game hasmotivated Beebe to persevere.

“I’m living today because ofbasketball,” he said. “It chang-es my life every single day.”

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The ball has been Beebe’s companion since his days growing up in the Bronx, where he says “there was a lot of gangs and drugs.”

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