Meet the scholarship winners from KC’s Top Gun Invitational: ‘Best thing in the world’

In a premier youth travel softball tournament known for its competitive spirit and high-level recruiting connections, it’s hard to imagine what other incentives the Top Gun Invitational could compact into the five-day June event set to wrap up Sunday.

Yet none of these were at the top of Robb Behymer’s docket when listing his favorite storylines from the tournament.

At No. 1: the scholarships.

Behymer started the tournament years ago to honor his late father, who coached youth sports for 40 years. But to take it a step further, he wanted to uphold the educational standards his father instilled on him and his six siblings. So he started giving out four $1,000 scholarships to four graduating seniors in the tournament, hoping to help athletes achieve their academic goals.

After this year, the tournament will have given away $39,000 in total.

“It’s the best thing in the world,” Behymer said. “Scholarships come right out of our bank account. We don’t have anybody that sponsors them.”

The online application goes live nine months prior to the invitational’s start date. Behymer, the Top Gun Invitational founder and co-owner of Top Gun Events, isn’t involved in the selection process; he said a trusted group of people review the applications.

Behymer said he doesn’t know who the winners are until the day of. When it’s time, a staff member scoops him up in a go-kart, drives to the field and presents a jumbo-sized version of the scholarship check to the player in front of their teammates, coaches and parents.

And, Behymer said, that’s not even the best part: It’s all about being part of their journey.

This outlook became a full-circle moment for Behymer in August of 2021, when he suffered a heart attack and was taken to Saint Luke’s East Hospital located in Lee’s Summit. Luckily, Behymer’s time in the emergency room was short. Coincidentally, though, he reconnected with a familiar face.

“She was one of my scholarship winners,” Behymer said. “She went to school, got a nursing degree and was one of my scholarship winners, and now she’s saving my life.”

Abby Hyde, a 2017 scholarship winner, was the emergency department registered nurse taking care of Behymer. Like Hyde, who played in the Top Gun tournament for five years, each of this year’s winners had participated in the tournament for multiple years prior.

For New Lenox Lightning 18u’s Kathleen Hester, playing in her third Top Gun invitational, the Bowdoin College commit couldn’t believe she was one of the winners. But as Top Gun Events Director of Operations Kayleigh Behymer continued to name off her past accolades, she and her teammates started putting the pieces together. These accomplishments included finishing in the top 1% of her graduating class.

Before Hester could walk over to receive her award, her teammates crashed in for a group hug to show their excitement for her — almost like when they are on the field, she said.

When asked about how the tournament was going in his eyes, her coach Jim Abbott paused, pointed to the scholarship and said, “This is what it’s all about.”

“For so many years, it was such a time management, like having to balance academics, athletics, other things at school like clubs,” Hester said. “To see my hard work pay off is really a special feeling.”

Texas Blaze NTX 18u National-Ward’s Hannah Decker received a similar reaction from her teammates when her name was announced, as her teammate Erika Thurman shook both of her shoulders in excitement.

And Decker’s team dynamic is different than most. Although the organization is located in Texas, Decker is from Kansas — a 2023 graduate of Garden Plain High School. To even attend practice, the drive is over eight hours long, yet the LeTourneau University commit still finds a way to have a presence, whether over Zoom or in person.

Coach Kevin Ward, who wrote Decker’s letter of recommendation, doubled down on her dedication on and off the field, referring to her as the team’s energizer bunny.

“It’s just a huge honor all the way around because it shows her hard work since she was a little kid,” Ward said. “You can’t put the heart in you, but once it’s in there you can’t take it out. And she’s had the heart the whole time.”

The other two scholarship winners — Missouri Chiefs’ Landry Cochran (Drury University commit) and Nebraska Gold 18u National’s Faith Mills (University of Nebraska-Omaha commit) — are plenty accomplished, too. And they’ve both been around the tournament for some time.

Cochran has played in the tournament for seven to eight years, while Mills began in seventh grade. Both viewed the surreal moment as one of many enjoyable aspects of the weekend.

In her fifth year as Top Gun’s camp director, Wichita State coach Kristi Bredbenner has seen the impact scholarships can make on players at the youth and collegiate level. Coming back and looking forward to the invitational every year, Bredbenner emphasized that although this space is a chance to recruit and see good players, the ultimate goal entering college is for the kids to get a four-year degree.

Bredbenner stated that all softball players won’t receive a softball scholarship — nor a full-ride at that — which is where academic scholarships come into play. And with the opportunities that Top Gun presents on and off the field, Bredbenner said it has become one of the top tournaments in the nation.

“The harder these kids work and the better they get at softball obviously increases their chances of getting the athletic scholarship,” Bredbenner said, “but it’s also knowing you’ve got to be putting together a good resume outside of softball.”