KEN STEVENS remembers the moment it became official like it was yesterday. He was at home watching the local news in May 2020. Like the rest of the world, he was looking for any sense of hope or even just some clarity as a global pandemic raged on after bringing life in America (and the world at large) to a halt just two months earlier. But there was no looming light at the end of the tunnel on any news broadcasts those days. Just cold doses of reality, one after another, day after day. And for Stevens, what had already seemed like inevitable bad news for weeks was about to become reality.
“I was at home, and I think I saw it go under the ticker on one of the news broadcasts: I was like, And there it was in black and white. The Parks Department sent the email out,” recalls Stevens, founder and commissioner of the prestigious Dyckman Basketball summer leagues in New York City. “There was no point of fighting it. There was no one to email back, like, ”
