Kewan Beebe overcame significant obstacles in his childhood to become a star basketball player at Glen Cove High School. He grew up in the Bronx where his mother passed away when he was 13 and he was later shot at age 14. After recovering, he bounced between homes including a period of homelessness in Virginia before being taken in by Frank and Carla D'Ambra of Glen Cove. The D'Ambras provided stability and support that allowed Beebe to focus on basketball and become the first male in his family to attend college in the fall at SUNY New Paltz.

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2. Kewan Beebe sits
watching sports
on television,
something he
does religiously at
his Glen Cove
home. (March 31,
2013)
Hard road
coverstory
Before becoming a star
basketball player, Glen Cove’s
Kewan Beebe had
many obstacles to overcome
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3. NOW ONLINE
See more photos of Kewan Beebe.
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BY MIKE GAVIN
michael.gavin@newsday.com
T
he sound of gun-
shots fired outside
his Bronx apart-
ment one July
night in 2008
awoke Kewan
Beebe. He rushed to the win-
dow and peeked through the
curtain. It was just after 1:30
a.m. Another shot was fired.
Beebe felt no pain. It wasn’t
until he got a tingling in his
stomach and noticed his hand
covered in blood that he real-
ized he was wounded — the
stray bullet had struck the
14-year-old in the lower abdo-
men. Beebe was rushed to the
hospital, where he underwent
the first of multiple surgeries.
“I thought I was going to die,”
he said. “The only thing that
kept me alive was basketball.”
A defining moment
A chorus of “MVP” chants
rained down from the stands
at Glen Cove High School a
year ago as Beebe stood at the
free-throw line.
Just minutes earlier, it had
seemed that the most successful
season in decades for the Big
Red boys’ basketball team was
nearing its end. Glen Cove was
playing Floral Park in the first
round of the Nassau Class A
playoffs and trailed by 10 points
with six minutes remaining.
But Beebe, who plays point
guard, was about to give his
team the very thing he had
recently received: a second
chance at life.
“He gives these guys the
feeling they can win every
game,” said the team’s coach,
Peter Falen. “He’s brought life
to this program.”
In short order, Beebe
nailed a straightaway three-
pointer. He weaved through
traffic in the paint for the
layup. He followed up with a
steal, 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,
Cassandra
Weaver, above,
died in 2007 in
the Bronx,
where Beebe
was shot in ’08.
Right: Jan. 27,
leading his
team against
Manhasset.
PHOTOBYSTEVEPFOST
ON THE COVER. Beebe with
the D’Ambras; he leaves them
this fall to fulfill his dream,
playing at college, in New Paltz.
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4. Star’s ‘second chance’
for the bucket and the foul to
convert a three-point play.
And that’s not all. He calmly
drained two free throws with
just seconds remaining —
and those “MVP” chants
echoing in the background —
to seal the comeback.
Beebe scored 10 of his 26
points in the final few minutes
to lift Glen Cove to a thrilling
57-54 win.
For Beebe, who is now a
senior, it was the defining mo-
ment of his two seasons with
Glen Cove. He led the Big Red
to its first conference champion-
ship in 22 years (the team lost to
Jericho in the quarterfinals) and
was named 2012 All-County and
Conference A-III Player of the
Year.
It was also a step toward the
dream he is chasing — to play
college basketball.
But during his pursuit,
Beebe has encountered many
obstacles. Being shot that
summer night wasn’t the first
or the last, but it was a journey
that brought him into the
hearts and home of Carla and
Frank D’Ambra.
Surviving childhood
The time — 7:44 p.m. — on
March 23, 2007, is embedded
in Beebe’s mind. A doctor
pulled him, his two older broth-
ers and an older sister aside to
tell them that their mother,
Cassandra Weaver, had passed
away.
“I thought, to be honest, my
life was over,” recalled Beebe,
who was 13 then and said his
mother had been ill for some
time. “I really didn’t have a
reason to live. She was my
everything.”
While growing up, Beebe
and his siblings bounced
around the South Bronx with
their mother.
“There was a lot of gangs
and drugs,” Beebe recalled.
“Basketball was the only thing
you could look forward to
coming outside for every day.”
Beebe said an aunt was
named guardian and moved
into 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 building
turned violent, ending in
Beebe’s bullet wound. Medical
records show he suffered
multiple inter-abdominal punc-
ture wounds. In the surgeries
that followed, Beebe under-
went a colostomy, had part of
his large intestine removed,
had the bullet taken out and
then had the colostomy re-
versed.
He described the periods
between his operations as “the
worst time of my life” because
he felt his basketball hopes were
in jeopardy. He said he would lie
in his bed and synchronize the
rhythm of the monitors to the
sound of a bouncing ball as he
envisioned himself driving past
a defender. When Beebe finally
fully recovered five months
after 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 was
going to do good in school
and continue to play basket-
ball,” said Huggins, 24, of the
Bronx. “So once he got shot,
his mentality was, ‘I have a
second chance at life, I’m
going to chase my dream.’
From then on, that’s what he
has done every single day.”
During Beebe’s recovery, his
aunt moved the family to
Hampton, Va., where he would
live for the next three years.
There were times, he said, that
they 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, Carla
cheering him on in practice, Frank keeping his strength
up, and both adding his picture to family photos.
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5. Beebe discusses game strategy with his Glen
Cove teammates and coach Peter Falen during
halftime of a home game in February. His
awards have mounted; they include All-County
and 2012 Conference A-III Player of the Year.
happening to me?’ ” Beebe
said. “I thought I did some-
thing wrong.”
Finding his family
The lone constant in his life
was basketball.
Beebe started playing orga-
nized basketball for the first
time with an Amateur Athletic
Union team in Virginia during
the summer of 2009. He began
to refine his game, developing
a jump shot and improving his
ball handling.
In 2011, he began making
trips to Glen Cove to stay with
friends. He played at Island
Garden, a basketball facility in
West Hempstead, and attend-
ed St. John’s basketball camp.
Through his friend and former
Glen Cove High teammate,
Yadiyah Letellier, Beebe was
introduced to the D’Ambras, a
Glen Cove couple whom Le-
tellier knew through the Boys
and Girls Club.
Carla D’Ambra, who is on the
nonprofit’s board of directors,
became somewhat of a basket-
ball mom to Beebe, and the two
quickly established a bond.
That year, just a few months
shy of his 18th birthday, Beebe
said his aunt called to inform
him that she had moved once
again and that his belongings
were in storage. With Beebe
essentially homeless, the
D’Ambras invited him to live
with them.
“Knowing Kewan’s story
really put us in the right frame
of mind to try and help him
out because, really, he had no
one,” said Frank D’Ambra, who
is chief executive of a freight
forwarding company. “We
thought it would be a good
thing to do to give him a
chance to get through things
so he could have a chance at
success.”
Beebe moved in with the
D’Ambras in August 2011, and
the couple enrolled him as a
junior at Glen Cove High,
where he overcame fluctuat-
ing grades to become an
honor roll student.
“He was a 17-year-old boy
who had lived three lifetimes
already with all he’d been
through,” said Carla D’Ambra,
whom Beebe calls ‘Mom.’
The couple — who have no
children together, although
Frank has two daughters from
a previous marriage — de-
scribe Beebe as quiet but
funny, and mature but a big
kid at heart clinging to a child-
hood that he was robbed of.
Even at 19, Beebe’s favorite
television show is “SpongeBob
Square Pants.”
“Everywhere he goes, it’s
like he tugs on people’s
hearts,” said Carla D’Ambra.
“He has this aura of kindness
about him. I wanted to help
him. Now, I can’t even imagine
life without Kewan Beebe.”
‘That was the turning point’
In the D’Ambras’ three-bed-
room Victorian, Beebe has his
own bedroom for the first time
in his life. In the fall, he will
attend SUNY-New Paltz, becom-
ing the first male in his family to
go to college, his sister said.
“It’s so amazing to see
where we came from and now
where he’s trying to go,” Hug-
gins said. “A lot of people like
us, we don’t really make it. But
he has followed his dream, and
it’s unbelievable that he’s
really doing it.”
It may seem the D’Ambras
gave Beebe a second chance at
life, but the way he sees it, they
gave him a first chance.
“I’d probably be dead on the
streets or in jail if it wasn’t for
them,” Beebe said. “That was
the turning point of my life.”
There is no trace of his past
hardships when Beebe is on the
court. In his last season at Glen
Cove, he averaged 16.3 points
per game and led the Big Red
back to the playoffs. Though his
road to Glen Cove wasn’t nearly
as smooth as his jump shot,
through it all, the game has
motivated Beebe to persevere.
“I’m living today because of
basketball,” he said. “It chang-
es my life every single day.”
PHOTOBYSTEVENRYAN
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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